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Swim Against the Swamp

Mark Tapscott says Republicans should be made of sterner stuff.

He points to Senator Tommy Tuberville (R.-Ala.) as one who is showing Republicans “How to Win the Budget Battle Against the Swamp.”

Senate rules are such that a single U.S. Senator can prevent military promotions and appointments from being approved by unanimous consent (without a recorded vote). Tuberville has blocked hundreds, saying he’ll retreat only when the Biden administration drops its policy of paying for abortion-​related expenses of military personnel. The policy violates the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits using tax dollars to pay for abortions.

Tuberville has stuck to his guns despite abuse. Emulate him, Tapscott enjoins.

Don’t mistake Tapscott to imply that negotiating a compromise is always legitimate, while he acknowledges: “nobody gets everything they demand, but everybody must get some of what they demand. [But only] when both sides realize that’s the only way out of an impasse.”

Demand what, though?

The principles, if any, that bring you to Congress should not be compromised. Whether forsaking them entails making any given unpalatable agreement isn’t always obvious. But often, it is. And you betray yourself by pretending otherwise.

What if, over the last 90 years, relatively decent lawmakers had never accepted deals — about spending, taxes, regulations, foreign policy, and other questions — that entailed violating the proper function of government as they understood it?

The battles, the outcomes, the procedures, and the precedents would have been much different. And I think we’d be far better off.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Less Hate — This Week

Reviewing this last week’s big stories:

Stay tuned for Part Two, for Saturday.
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international affairs

Victory & Surrender

Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker sums up in a single word the recently announced framework of an agreement between the United States of America and the Taliban: Surrender.

“This current process bears an unfortunate resemblance to the Paris peace talks during the Vietnam War,” writes Crocker in a Washington Post op-​ed. “Then, as now, it was clear that by going to the table we were surrendering; we were just negotiating the terms of our surrender.”

He’s not wrong. 

It may seem strange that, after successfully toppling the Taliban government, a savage regime that had given safe haven to Al-​Qaeda to launch its 911 attacks against us, we would now, nearly two decades later, be anxious to cut a deal with that same Taliban, even possibly bringing them into a power-​sharing role.

Anything to get the heck out of Kabul and back to the good ol’ USA. And it is a recognition, right or wrong, that the Afghan government is unsustainable.

The alternative? Keep a significant contingent of U.S. troops in Afghanistan … forever. Or until we have fashioned a brand new westernized-​Afghanistan that is no possible threat to us.

Yep, forever. 

“Winning may not be an available option,” contends a new Rand report, “but losing … would be a blow to American credibility, the weakening of deterrence and the value of U.S. reassurance elsewhere, an increased terrorist threat emanating from the Afghan region, and the distinct possibility of a necessary return there under worse conditions.” 

The same mistaken reasons we stayed in Vietnam. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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