GOP Govs: Fake Meat, Fake Meetings
Plus: Biden grasps the campus-protests nettle.
Some harsh words from Speaker Mike Johnson about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene the other day! Asked by an interviewer whether Greene is a “serious lawmaker,” Johnson replied: “I don’t think she is proving to be, no.”
That’s the sort of moral clarity we expect from our civic leaders. It was impossible to say before, but it’s finally become apparent that Marjorie Taylor Greene—she of the Jewish space lasers, the calls to execute Nancy Pelosi, the speeches to conferences of white nationalists, and so on and so on—is a little short of serious. Happy Friday.
GOP Governors Do the Darnedest Things
First things first: a correction.
In yesterday’s newsletter, I cited Jim Hightower:
The middle of the road is a dangerous place. The late Jim Hightower, the lefty and populist (and witty and charming) Democrat from Texas, liked to say, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”
The quotation is accurate. The description of Jim Hightower, as a witty, charming, lefty populist, is accurate. But Jim Hightower is—I’m glad to say!—very much alive. I don’t know why I assumed he was “late,” but he’s not. So I apologize to our readers. But most of all I apologize to Jim Hightower for, as it were, canceling him, and hope to buy him a drink when we’re next in the same town.
But when we have that drink, I think I’ll respectfully stick to my defense of the middle of the road. Better to hang out with endangered armadillos than have to defend the clowns populating the shoulder. Speaking of whom: Let me take a minute to dwell on a couple recent shining moments from a couple of our distinguished Republican governors.
On Wednesday, Ron DeSantis boasted about signing legislation making it a crime, punishable by jail time, to manufacture or sell lab-based meat in Florida. “Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere. We’re not doing that in the state of Florida,” bellowed the governor of Florida, who last year authored a book titled The Courage to be Free.
Needless to say, there are no reasons of health or safety or public policy or morality to pass this legislation. It’s an old-fashioned payoff to a powerful industry in the state with lots of political power, protecting it against speculative future competition and innovation, dressed up as performative anti-wokeness.
In a devastating takedown of the action, the Dispatch’s Nick Catoggio summarizes the idiocy of DeSantis strutting and preening about preventing Floridians from buying meat developed in labs, if they wish to do so:
With unusual efficiency, it combines the most loathsome elements of the sort of New Right politics that DeSantis has embraced to get ahead in his party. It’s imperious, protectionist, deeply corrupt, and panders to the paranoia that animates so much of the GOP’s crankish base . . .
It would be bad enough if the “fake meat” ban were merely pointless and authoritarian, but it’s also terrible economic policy.
Read the whole thing. And then take a moment to enjoy the fact that Republican donors lit over $100 million on fire so this guy could win nine delegates in the race for the 2024 presidential nomination.
Governor DeSantis wants to ensure that as many animals as possible continue to be killed in Florida in order to produce meat. And speaking of killing animals, his counterpart in South Dakota, Kristi Noem, was also in the news—again—yesterday.
For it turns out that Gov. Noem is not just a puppy-killer. She’s also a fantasist. In her forthcoming book, she tells a story about a memorable meeting she had as a member of Congress:
I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all). Dealing with foreign leaders takes resolve, preparation and determination. My experiences on those many foreign trips made me a better member of Congress and a stronger governor. It allowed me to hone my deal-making skills, which play a crucial role in leadership.
Leave aside all the self-flattering tripe. As the Dakota Scout newspaper reports, there’s absolutely no evidence that any meeting between then-Rep. Noem and the North Korean dictator actually took place. And there’s a lot of reason to believe it never did:
“It’s bullshit,” remarked a longtime, high-level Capitol Hill staffer who worked on the House Armed Services Committee during the period in which Noem says she met Kim. That staffer was among a dozen staffers interviewed by The Scout who said they had no knowledge of the meeting, or who said Noem had never mentioned it before . . .
Noem served on the House Armed Services Committee from 2013-2015. During that period, committee members including Noem visited China in 2014. But there is no record of Kim being in China then. After assuming the role of supreme leader of North Korea in 2011, Kim did not leave North Korea until 2018.
Three final thoughts:
First, I hope Jim Hightower, a cheerfully partisan Democrat, has enjoyed reading this brief account of more embarrassment from today’s Republican party.
Second, all this goes to further demonstrate that, as Andrew noted earlier this week, the COVID pandemic didn’t exactly turf up the GOP’s best.
Finally: If Noem can make up a meeting with Kim in order to impress us with her deal-making skills, there’s no telling what else details from her book might have been invented.
Which gives me hope. Could it be that Cricket lives?
—William Kristol
Biden Rises Above
In yesterday’s Morning Shots, Bill called on Joe Biden to “grasp the nettle” and “speak up and make his case personally” about the unrest that has gripped college campuses across America in recent weeks. About an hour after we published, Biden headed to the Roosevelt Room to deliver previously unscheduled remarks on just that topic. While we’re on a roll like this, what should we ask Joe to do next?
Kidding, kidding! But seriously—Biden knocked it out of the park here. We hope you’ll permit us to quote him at length:
We’ve all seen the images. And they put to the test two fundamental American principles. The first is the right to free speech and for people to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard. The second is the rule of law. Both must be upheld.
We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent. The American people are heard. In fact, peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues. But neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society, and order must prevail.
Throughout our history, we’ve often faced moments like this because we are a big, diverse, free-thinking, and freedom-loving nation.
In moments like this, there are always those who rush in to score political points. But this isn’t a moment for politics. It’s a moment for clarity. So let me be clear. Peaceful protest in America—violent protest is not protected; peaceful protest is . . .
Let’s be clear about this as well. There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students. There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans . . .
I understand people have strong feelings and deep convictions. In America, we respect the right and protect the right for them to express that. But it doesn’t mean anything goes. It needs to be done without violence, without destruction, without hate, and within the law.
In highly charged political moments like the one we’re in, political battle lines are usually established based on the things we’re against. And this is perfectly reasonable when we’re hemmed in on all fronts by events that dismay us.
“We need to create a space in the discourse,” Tim tweeted this week, “for people who are against terrorism/hostage taking, against reckless bombing of aid workers, against perpetuating famine, against anti-Semitic protests, against only protesting one side of the conflict, and against militarized police marching on the Portlandia quad like they are invading Fallujah.”
But at such times it’s desperately important to have a positive vision to cling to as well. That’s what struck us most in Biden’s speech: his contention that we face moments like this, not because America is broken, but because America is “a big, diverse, free-thinking, and freedom-loving nation,” one that’s willing to allow a certain amount of messy tension between public freedom and public order. The only way to muddle through, Biden was saying, is to stick to our principles.
—Andrew Egger
Catching up . . .
U.S. labor market slows in April, adding 175,000 jobs: Axios
Israel gives Hamas a week to strike a deal or Rafah offensive will begin: Wall Street Journal
Israeli officials weigh sharing power with Arab states in postwar Gaza: New York Times
Campus protests go global: Top French university shuts as police remove pro-Palestinian group: Politico
Michael Cohen’s electronics in the spotlight as Trump trial continues: NBC News
Biden finalizes rule opening up Obamacare to DACA recipients: Politico
Quick Hits: MAGA Pentecost
Are you a charismatic Christian who frets that your church doesn’t talk about the other Messiah, Donald Trump, quite enough? Or perhaps a dedicated NewsMax viewer who wishes the hosts could spice things up sometimes with some hot-off-the-press prophecy straight from the Almighty? Boy, have we got a show for you. Here’s NBC News’s Mike Hixenbaugh:
The audience of about 1,500 people waved small American flags and chanted “USA! USA! USA!” as television cameras began filming last Friday inside a Regent University ballroom. Many in the crowd wore red “Make America Great Again” hats. Some carried Bibles.
They had paid $60 each to attend a live taping of “FlashPoint,” a national TV program that’s won loyal viewers with a unique blend of pro-Trump political commentary and prophetic messages about God’s divine plans for America.
Over the next three hours, the audience heard the same overarching message that “FlashPoint” broadcasts three times a week on the Victory Channel television network and various streaming platforms: The world has entered its final years. Jesus will soon return. But Christians are not meant to wait idly while evil runs rampant; they are called to occupy positions of power and influence in society. And in the short term, that means putting Donald Trump back in the White House.
“I watch to get the truth,” said one “FlashPoint” attendee, who described a “supernatural” rush of clarity the first time she found the show while flipping channels two years ago.
“This is the only news show where you hear what Jesus thinks,” said another attendee, a mother of three school-aged children who’d driven four hours from central North Carolina for the taping.
Cheap Shots
“The student editors of the Columbia Law Review have issued a statement urging the law school to cancel exams in the wake of the police operation that cleared the university's encampment, saying the ‘violence’ has left them ‘irrevocably shaken’ and ‘unable to focus’."
One reasonably asks in response how these students who claim such hardship would fare if they actually were in Gaza now, trying simply to survive and to forge an existence in the rubble, in deprivation of basic life necessities, and with dead bodies in their midst. Or were among the Jewish families who lost loved ones in the Hamas attack. There is no time out, or redo, or pass-fail option for those people. It might also be worth remembering how quickly they would trade places with these shaken American students on campus who have the ability instead to sleep comfortably tonight in their own beds, in a climate-controlled environment, and eat a healthy, nourishing meal of their choice, and talk to or visit their loved ones as usual.
It seems some people have lost sight of what actual suffering and hardship are, never having experienced it themselves. I also wonder how their future employers will react when these young people tell them that they need special consideration when the pressures of the work world and other everyday real life obligations become too intense. That shaken feeling and inability to focus likely will extend to how to find a new job and the need to figure out how to pay the bills. But you know that. Too bad that they don't. Yet.
Biden's address reminds me of my favorite Bill Clinton line. There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America.