It's A Wonderful Life And The Bank Run Theory

When I was in graduate school, I studied with professors who styled themselves Aristotelians, but in hindsight, they were just poseurs. When I became Catholic and began to look seriously at Aquinas, I began to understand how a real Aristotelian thinks, but at the same time, I realized that I actually began thinking as a real Aristotelian when I left graduate school and went into tech. A good Aristotelian looks for causes. One of the first bits of wisdom I picked up from my tech mentors was that in tech, things don't "just happen"; you can't say, "well, the program just crashed". The program crashed for a reason.

So I've been reflecting for days on Prime Minister Trudeau's reversal of his emergency declaration. It didn't "just happen". It happened for a reason. On Thursday, I listed several possible reasons, and a visitor has helped me sort through their likelihoid. Of potential opposition to the emergency declaration among either the Liberal caucus or the Canadian senate, the visitor said,

I agree that things did not LOOK good in the Senate debate, with the emphasis on the appearance. Only the Conservative members of the Canadian Senate are still members of the Conservative caucus. In 2014 Trudeau expelled all the Senators appointed by Liberal Prime Ministers from the Liberal caucus as part of his pledge to reform the Canadian Senate into a non-partisan body. Of course a majority of the Senate was still appointed by Liberals and only 16 are Conservatives, but the Conservative members were the ones who were speaking to the Emergencies Act legislation as the debate began. I think no one seriously expected it wouldn’t pass, but only after a lot of coverage of Conservative talking points. Since the protesters had been cleared from Ottawa by this point, probably seemed best to move on.

As for the House of Commons, of course any Liberal MP who voted against the bill would have been expelled from caucus; that’s how the parliamentary system works. Unless there is a so-called free vote, of which there have been perhaps half a dozen in the last seventy-five years, an MP must vote with his party or face being kicked out and having to sit as an independent. In this case the vote was viewed as one of confidence in the government, and if it had failed an election would have been triggered. This was the reason the NDP leader gave for supporting it. Mounties have denied that more than a few hundred names were released to banks; certainly not those of “Brianes” who donated $50.

I think that pretty much rules out the theories that involve loss of confidence in Trudeau by his caucus or the senate. The other theories I listed involve either opposition by financial interests to the need for them to police their customers, more specific concern about bank runs by customers worried that their accounts would be frozen, or beyond that, a more general groundswell of public opinion against the declaration. These are not, of course, mutually exclusive. The visitor raised two objections to the bank run theory or its variations:

Canada only has about 25 banks and five of them control 85% of all Canadian banking business. I think a “run on the banks” is a meaningless concept in the Canadian context.

, , , I was at the bank on Friday midday and all seemed normal. I note that the stock of all five of the Big Five banks was up on Friday, so if collapse is imminent it’s a closely guarded secret. I note that Mr Marazzo’s (former) bank has 12 million customers, close to the equivalent of a quarter of the population of Canada, and TD has 13 million, so even if every former Truck Convoy donor removed his or her money it would be a drop in the bucket.

There are two counters to these arguments. The first is what George Bailey outlines in the scene above from It's a Wonderrul Life: banks don't just have vaults full of cash. They make their money from loans on which they charge interest. The loans are funded by deposits. The vast majority of the deposits are paid right out again to borrowers. Their cash on hand is kept to a minimun specified by bank regulators. To say that Wampus Bank has $38 trillion in assets (or whatever) says nothing about its cash on hand, and if a relatively small number of people suddenly cash out their accounts such that the bank's cash reserves are threatened, that could lead to insolvency no matter how big the bank.

The other great Hollywood film about bank runs is The Big Short, which is about how several groups of contrarian analysts discover and profit massively from the causes of the 2008 US banking crisis. This is proof if no orher that banks fail no matter how big they are. In one delicious scene, a Standard and Poor's analyst haughtily defends her deliberate blindness to the actual crisis in the US banking industry by insisting that even the contrarians are hypocrites, since they have bosses like she does, and they're all part of the same game.

The game, which I think both George Bailey and the Big Short contrarians would agree, is credit. The word is based on the Latin credo, "I believe". In turn, we have concepts like credibility. Commerce is based on an overall trust in the players' credibility. Just because you may walk into your bank on Friday morning and see everything looking normal isn't necessarily a guarantee that it is. That's certainly one of the subtexts of The Big Short. Indeed, if bank stocks were up that particular day, it could just as well reflect they'd been down earlier but had recovered, due possibly to investor concern about the overall credibility of the banking system if it began to seem like it was arbitrarily freezing accounts without due process.

In that case, even prior to anything like an actual, or just a significant, run on Canadian banks, this could certainly make Canadian bankers nervous. Certainly US banks suddenly became very sensitive to accusations that they were gouging on overdraft fees via practices like delaying overdraft notices to customers until multiple overdrafts, generating multiple overdraft fees, could be charged. Once the bankers realized this gave their industry a bad name, they dropped the practice quickly.

Naturally, Trudeau could have reversed course on the emergency declaration for actual reasons we may never learn. On the other hand, accusations of bank overreaction and arbitrary freezing of accounts were prominent after the emergency declaration, and given the banks' motivation to avoid controversy, they may well have deemed it prudent to head off any possible public panic by urging Trudeau at least to take them out of the process. The fact that a number of Canadian banks then felt the need quickly to correct the public record in their cases supports this view as well.

"Full Tonto"

Amid the generally awful Ukraine coverage yesterday, I discovered a new expression:

Russia's foreign ministry said on Friday it was surprised by a remark by UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine showed that President Vladimir Putin had gone "full tonto".

"It is surprising that the British defence minister gives such assessments of the head of another state," Maria Zakharova, the ministry's spokesperson, told a briefing.

Sure enough, the Urban Dictionary provides this definition (I assume the Russian foreign ministry had to look this up as well):

Gone full tonto

taken lunacy to a new level

You've gone full tonto there, Simon

There's also just Tonto:

Tonto

When someone completely loses the plot and goes mental at you for no reason. The word can be used in both funny and serious situations.

Teachers, partners and mothers are most likely to be described as going "tonto".

Person 1: "You coming out tonight?"

Person 2: "Sorry can't my mum's gone absolutely tonto for no reason and she's lost the plot."

The context this definition provides is illuminating -- it normally applies to mothers and teachers, especially in crazy-tyrant mode. But here we have the UK defense minister applying it officially to a head of state, with an implication of belittlement and ridicule. I get the impression that the Russian foreign minstry looked this one up too and was not amused. But then I followed the link to the plot:

The plot

The destination or proper action for the outing

What’s the plot tonight??

More widely reported is this exchange between US officials and Ukraine President Zelensky:

Zelensky has reportedly refused to be evacuated from the capital city of Kyiv as Russian military forces attack the city and surrounding areas.

“The U.S. government is prepared to help Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky leave Kyiv to avoid being captured or killed by advancing Russian forces, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials,” The Washington Post reported. “But so far, the president has refused to go.”

A senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of the conversation that U.S. officials had with Zelensky when he was reportedly asked to evacuate says that Zelensky responded: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

The situation is fluid, but the one certain thing is that circumstances aren't turning out as respectable opinion had predicted. Or maybe more succintly, they've all lost the plot.

“No One Expected Sanctions Would Prevent Anything”

Among the revealing data points in yesterday's news was President Brandon's remark to the press, “no one expected sanctions would prevent anything.” The story at the link asks the obvious questions:

Huh, what? Then what has the Biden team been talking about, by threatening sanctions over the past month? If they thought that, why have they just been talking about sanctions?

Why did Kamala Harris claim that the sanctions would deter Putin?

Biden also tripped over White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who said the same thing.

. . . Biden’s statement was such a stunning lie and flip-flop on what his team had been saying that even CBS News’ Margaret Brennan called it out.

“I thought that was so interesting when President Biden said, ‘No one expected sanctions to prevent anything, Brennan said. “Actually, that’s exactly what his foreign policy team said again and again, and it’s what his secretary of state said to me on Sunday.”

My own view is that the remark is completely consistent with the real Joe Biden: he believes, as I've noted (for instance here) , that he's "a skilled Machiavellian manipulator, operating in a behind-the-scenes dimension of Realpolitik beyond conventional expectations." As a true crime fan, it reminds me of confessions by hardened psychopaths outlining heinous torture-murders in utterly matter-of-fact tones -- of course I did it that way. That's how I operate.

So in my view, this wasn't just a slip, a misspeak, or even a casual falsehood. For good or ill, he was outlining his actual agenda. It appears that his intent was to permit an elaborate kabuki for months, leading up to a Russian invasion of Ukraine that would be just as inevitable as the bungled evacuation of Afghanistan. Of course it was going to happen. That's how world leaders operate. Don't be so naive.

Let's look at other data points in yesterday's news. Take Secretary Blinken's remarks:

On Thursday’s broadcast of “CBS Evening News,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded to a question on whether the United States will cut off purchases of oil and gas from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine by stating that we’re trying to ensure “that we inflict maximum pain on Russia” while at the same time, “minimizing any of the pain to us.”

Host Norah O’Donnell asked, “Russia’s economy’s fueled by gas, and the U.S. is a consumer. So, would the U.S. consider cutting off oil and gas purchases from Russia?”

Blinken responded, “Well, what we’re doing, Norah, across the board, is making sure that we inflict maximum pain on Russia for what President Putin has done, while minimizing any of the pain to us.”

He also stated, “We’re in full coordination with other countries, both consumers and producers alike, to minimize any impact that this may have on energy prices and on gasoline.”

According to CNN,

President Joe Biden, facing the risk of a destabilizing energy price shock, is promising to blunt the impact of rising energy prices on American families. But that won't be easy.

The Russia-Ukraine crisis has already helped lift oil and gasoline prices to levels unseen since 2014. Further sanctions on Moscow could drive pump prices closer to $4 a gallon. Biden is bracing the public for just that, acknowledging on Tuesday that "defending freedom will have costs."

. . . There's a long history of voters blaming presidents for high gas prices -- fair or not. Yet presidents have limited power to drive down energy prices, as Biden himself has learned painfully in recent months.

So this sounds like it'll be another months-long charade from Biden and his handlers: they'll make a show of trying to lower fuel prices, but they'll go up anyhow as the Russians profit from their continued rise. And at a certain point, President Brandon will blurt, "Of course I knew I couldn't do anything about gas prices. That's how world leaders operate."

It's almost as though the guy was colluding with Putin to put on a noisy chorus of complaint about his invasion of Ukraine while welcoming an excuse to raise gas prices behind the scenes. Why would he do this? Well, for one thing, Zelensky fired Hunter from Burisma. For another, high fuel prices are a key part of the Democrat agenda. Look at John Kerry's remarks from yesterday:

Republicans have torn into 'despicable' former Secretary of State John Kerry for saying he hopes Vladimir Putin will still help fight climate change just before Russian fighter jets, troops and tanks rolled into Ukraine in an all-out invasion.

President Biden's climate envoy said frozen Russian land is 'thawing', Putin's 'infrastructure' is 'at risk' and urged the Russian tyrant to 'help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.

Well, the best thing Putin can do for the climate is make sure fuel prices rise, and he's certainly up to doing that. And whoever gets burned or maimed or blown up many time zones distant will be collateral damage (and they had it coming for firing Hunter anyhow). There's a strange detachment among all the key people here. Never let a crisis go to waste.

The US truckers are on their way. One of their key grievances is the rising price of fuel. And this has been under Biden's control from, the start. As Texas Gov Abbot put it,

Biden's closure of pipelines because of shutting down leases and things like that, the ability to drill, that's one thing that's caused the price of gasoline to go up so much because the price of oil is going up so much. Biden knew when he was getting into this situation with regard to Russia and the Ukraine, he knew that the price of oil would be going up even more. And so everybody watching this show, the price they're going to be a paying at the pump will be going up even more in the coming days. If Biden would rely on American-based energy, we could solve that problem.

Working class protests are powerful things. Especially after Canada, people are paying attention as the US convoy nears Washington.

Trudeau Revokes Emergency

So it's known that Prime Minister Trudeau has revoked his declaration of emergency, only a couple of days afer he and other officials strongly implied it would last at least 30 days. The most detailed explanation of the legal background and implications of the declaration I've seen is in the link above.

I've seen little other intelligent commentary, especially for the reasons behind the reversal. The explanations I've seen include:

• The state of emergency needed to be approved by the Canadian senate. Debate there was underway, and it didn't look good. The declration was withdrawn yesterday before the senate voted, and the senate canceled debate without a vote.
• Canadian banks and financial institutions may have been pleading behind scenes not to be put in a position of policing their clients.
• The Mounties were arbitrarily telling Canadian banks to freeze accounts, in at least some cases of people who had donated token amounts to the truckers without being physically present at any protest. This was possibly causing runs on banks -- earlier on Wednesday, it was announced that the Mounties were now "unfreezing" accounts, apparently in response to these reports.
• Some Liberal Party MPs were apparently forced to vote in favor of the declaratrion on February 14 on penalty of being expelled from caucus, but several are known to be skeptical that the declaration was needed.
• Trudeau and the cabinet may have underestimated public opposition to the declaration, especially in the wake of overreaction by Mounties and police in Ottawa, recorded in viral videos, as well as reports of arbitrary freezing of accounts. I have the impression that the situation was quickly changing, and I would speculate that Canadian senators were feeling the heat of constituent concern that the House of Commons hadn't felt the week before.

One thing that isn't completely clear is the status of those already arrested for offenses or who had their trucks confiscated during the ten days of the emergency declaration, and whether investigations of other individuals for activites before or during the declaration will continue. As of Wednesday,

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) announced on Wednesday that it has started an internal investigation over allegations that some OPP officers may have donated to the fundraiser for the anti-Wuhan coronavirus restriction Freedom Convoy protests.

The officers were allegedly identified as part of a leak of hacked fundraiser data from the crowdfunding website GiveSendGo by the left-leaning Toronto Star newspaper published this week.

OPP spokesperson Bill Dickson stated that the OPP was aware of the allegations and told broadcaster CBC that officers “appear to have made donations that have gone toward the unlawful protest in Ottawa.”

“The matter has been brought to the attention of OPP Command, and the OPP Professional Standards Unit has launched an internal conduct investigation into this matter,” Dickson told the CBC in an email.

In another case,

The director of communications in the Ontario ministry responsible for enforcing the law is out of a job after she was tied to a $100 donation supporting the convoy blockading Ottawa streets.

Marion Isabeau-Ringuette is among several government staffers and associates under scrutiny after their names or identifying information were found in a pair of leaks of some 100,000 donations to American crowdfunding website GiveSendGo.

“For the communications director to be financially supporting an unlawful, illegal occupation is definitely concerning,” said NDP MPP Catherine Fife.

In the US, this individual would have quite the basis for both a wrongful termination suit and a defamation suit.

The impression I have is that the overreaction to the Ottawa protest and the emergency declaration have caused considerable damage to Canadian expectations that their institutions will protect their basic legal rights, that their police, especially the Mounties, behave professionally, and that the financial system can be trusted to handle their money. At least the Mounties are aware of the problem:

The RCMP is aware of the material circulating on social media pertaining to a chat group that includes some of its members, and we can confirm that we are looking into the matter. This material is not representative of those who have committed themselves to serving Canadians with integrity and professionalism.

. . . All members of the RCMP know that, whether on or off duty, they have a responsibility to hold themselves to the highest professional standards and are subject to the Code of Conduct of the RCMP at all times. This includes acting with integrity, fairness, and impartiality, and avoiding any potential conflicts between their professional responsibilities and private interests.

I don't think this is over.

Meanwhile, US truckers, inspired by the Canadian example, are on their way to Washington.

The Freedom Truckers, Solidarność, And The Underground Railroad

I've noticed complaints, not just from Prime Minister Trudeau but from other Canadians, that the Freedom Truckers have been partly funded by US donations. The first observation I would make is that, at least until the Canadian emergency declaration, there was nothing illegal, unethical, or immoral per se in making such a donation on either side of the border. There is no indication that any appeals for trucker funds were fraudulent.

The second observation I would make is that even before Canada became what is now constituted as Canada, there has been a friendly-adversarial relationship between the neighbors over human rights issues. Before the US Civil War, that territory was the most practical destination of the US Underground Railroad, which was an abolitionist network that facilitated the movement of escaped slaves to areas where they would be safe from recapture. However, even northern non-slave states in the US were required to return escaped slaves to their southern owners if they were caught. Canada wasn't under this obligation.

It appears that Canadians welcomed them, in part because the British had been quicker to abolish slavery. Followers of The Curse of Oak Island show recognize the case of Samuel Ball, an escaped slave from South Carolina who earned his freedom by fighting on the side of the British during the Revolution. Given the ambiguity of his situation in the US after 1783, he relocated to Nova Scotia, where he was welcomed and became a prosperous landowner.

During the Viet Nam War, Canada assisted US citizens who wished to escape conscription by making it easy for them to achieve landed immigrant status. I've got to assume this is also some source of pride for many Canadians, who must see themselves in such cases as a "true north" in the face of US injustices, and eventually the US issued an amnesty for US citizens who'd fled to Canada to avoid the draft. But it seems to me that these things can go both ways.

COVID lockdowns and other restrictive measures like curfews, limiting worship and other assembly, and limiting otherwise lawful business activity, are restrictions on human rights. Certainly in comparison to genocide, mass incarceration, wholesale confiscations of wealth and the like, they're milder, but they are in fact human rights abuses that can be justified only when the consequences of not violating such rights are worse. The record of the COVID panic has been that the restrictions have often been ineffective in stopping the disease at all and have had destructive side effects themselves, and even at best, the benefits of measures like vaccine mandates have been uncerain.

Efforts to negotiate even minimal relaxation of COVID restrictions, even in the face of clear evidence of their ineffectiveness, have been dificult in many countries, including Canada. Things have been worse in Australia and New Zealand, but those places aren't immediate US neighbors. There's a certain amount of good will between Americans and Canadians, especially at the people-to-people level involving the plebs, though not the elites. Americans and Canadians sympathize with people like truckers on both sides of the border. To claim that American truckers are just as subject to US border controls as Canadians, making American sympathies for Canadians somehow misguided, is to neglect the fact that the workers on both sides want both sets of controls, which have little medical justification, ameliorated or removed entirely.

This goes to another factor driving American sympathies: Americans and Canadians drive the same cars, eat the same food (with only a few exceptions), drink the same soda and beer, wear the same clothes. On the American side, COVID restrictions have been eased because states like Florida and Texas have been able to prove that things have turned out about the same with or without masks, social distance, or vaccines, which has made it easier for residents of other states to demand equivalent relaxations.

In Canada, as Jordan Peterson has pointed out, no equivalent relaxations took place until the Freedom Convoy began its protests, at which point five provinces promptly did schedule some limited lifting. At the same time, US controls do continue in various states, often inconsistently enforced, medically unnecessary, and at best annoying. The Freedom Convoy has had greater effect on US politicians than in Canada in encouraging continued relaxations, which from a US perspective is reason enough to have helped out with it -- again, via channels that in the US remain completely legal, moral, and ethical, and were the same in Canada until the emergency was declared.

But the fact remains that COVID controls of any sort are now completely political. The Super Bowl, held in Los Angeles County under one of the few remaining US outdoor masking regimes, occurred with the masking rule entirely unenforced and largely flouted, with no observable impact on the disease. The Ottawa protest, which a year ago would have been denounced as a superspreader event, appears to have resulted in no noticeable outbreak. There was no serious condemnation of protesters as dangerous spreaders of infection; they are now guilty only of hooliganism, er, mischief.

US truckers now appear to be gearing up for their own convoy. Their goal, which I think is entirely appropriate, is to further efforts at completely eradicating the human rights abuse of COVID controls, which are largely unabated at the federal level in both the US and Canada.

The last case I would cite is US (and indeed Vatican) support for the Solidarity movement in Poland. I don't know what foreign money went to support this in what proportion, although CIA money was certainly involved, with Vatican money quite possibly in concert with the CIA; I would also imagine that Polish-Americans and other US private groups sent money as well. It was in opposition to human rights abuses. It was well, legally, ethically, and morally spent, whatever the objections from the Warsaw regime, just as much so as the money going from the US to Canadian truckers.

It Isn't Trudeau

Justin Trudeau has had a lot of vilification lately, especially from the US side, as a tyrant and a dictator. I think he's a lightweight, but nowhere even near, say, Evita Perón, which is to say that as dictators go, he's AAA baseball.. It's not clear at all for now exactly what the state of emergency he's imposed on Canada entitles him to do, except that it's said the emergency can't override Canadian charter rights, which themselves are pretty vague. For instance,

In April 1982, Canada entrenched in its constitution a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 7 of this new document provides that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice". The Canadian Bill of Rights (1960), and the British and American constitutions, safeguarded those fundamental rights through the phrase "due process of law" instead of "principles of fundamental justice".

As interpreted in US jurisprudence, "due process of law' implies

When a government harms a person without following the exact course of the law, this constitutes a due process violation, which offends the rule of law.

What we're seeing in Canada following the declaration of emergency is truckers having their trucks seized and bank accounts frozen without a charge and without a trial. The mayor of Ottawa is currently saying the trucks will be sold. As far as anyone can tell, no relevant legislature has ever passed a law against what the truckers did specifying such penalties. In the US, this would definitely be a due process violation; in Canada, this is much less certain.

Someone at some point will presumably argue that seizing the truckers' means of livelihood without a charge or a trial violates "principles of fundamental justice", but listening to Trudeau himself in Parliament yesterday suggests he, or indeed a Canadian judge, will simply argue that Canada has always been founded on principles of fundamental justice, and it's precisely the un-Canadian behavior of the truckers that's put them in their pickle. Learn to code, guys. In fact, learn to code in the US.

At the start of the US rebellion against the UK, Canada as it was constituted at the time was offered to chance to join, and it chose not to. Different place. Always has been. For that matter, the Laginas are finding this out on Oak Island in a very different context. I would not go to Canada except to pass through quickly on the way to Alaska.

But there's a bigger issue here. What's happening now in Canada is just a special case of the COVID moral panic in its late, or "morning after" phase. US, and indeed at least some European, institutions have shown more resilience, especially in the end phase of the panic. The truckers' protests have had far more impact on US mayors, legislators, and governors than they have in Canada itself. But the truckers' protests are just a special case of a general recovery of sanity in the world population, and they came even as some Canadian provinces belatedly realized it was time to loosen up.

The COVID crisis worldwide was interpreted by the ruling elites as a delicious opportunity to suspend constitutionial protections everywhere. I thought when this all got started that it would be a long legal and political process to claw them back. But a big factor that drove the original moral panic was also Donald Trump. It's intriguing that so late in the process, Prime Minister Trudeau is blaming Trump, Trumpists, and "foreign" money for the truckers. He's a bit late to that particular game. Whatever Trump's own future may be, that genie is out of the bottle -- it's just that Trudeau still needs to get used to it.

Trump has been gone for more than a year. The COVID panic is winding down. There's a distinct fin de siècle quality to the ongoing Canadian drama. But it isn't really Trudeau's fault or his doing.

How Is The Putative Ukraine Crisis Not A Boondoggle?

Boondoggle has multiple meanings, but this one from the Urban Dictionary actually seems applicable to the current moment: there's some sort of diplomatic party going on in Munich, to which President Biden has dispatched Vice President Harris, who as far as anyone can tell is incapable of doing anything but relaxing/fun stuff other than work. Yesterday she made the following remarks at the Westin Grand Munich to illustrate that:

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, this was an important trip to be here at the Munich Security Conference — in particular this year, as I said yesterday.

We are looking at a moment that is a very decisive moment on one of the bases for the Munich Security Conference and certainly one of the founding reasons for NATO, which is European security and the connection and alliance between Europe and the United States.

This was a productive trip, in terms of the extensive bilateral meetings that we had that were in furtherance of the ongoing collaboration and partnership with our Allies.

It was important in that, as you all know, this is a moment that is very dynamic. If not every hour, certainly every day, there seem to be new moments of interest and also of intelligence.

Why just yesterday afternoon, the defense minister made a most illuminating Power Point presentation! Seriously, against what we're being told is a background of tanks almost rolling into Kyiv, this is the relative urgency with which our officials are actually treating the situation. New moments of interest indeed. Over the weekend I ran into this gaseous think piece in The Atlantic, Putin Has Made America Great Again:

The story of the Ukraine crisis so far has been about many things: blackmail; realpolitik; appeasement; even, apparently, Western provocation regardless of the facts. But, here in Europe, the one thing it very much has not been about is American decline. In fact, from here, the story of this latest crisis is of the reestablishment of America the Good, America the Bold, America the Supreme—and, by extension, Europe the Weak.

, , , While America itself continues to struggle with its own sense of decline, its dominions in Europe are choosing to suspend their disbelief in the imperium all over again. After years of grumbling about American power, it took only the whiff of a threat from Moscow for Europe to recommit to the old order, thrusting the battered old fasces of imperial authority back into the hands of the emperor in Washington.

Why, they all got together in breakout sessions at the Westin Grand Munich to celebrate that very development! But hundreds of words farther down, we get to the real point:

In his inaugural address, Biden’s message to the world was that America had been tested, but had come back stronger as a result. The country would, he said, “lead not merely by the example of our power but by the power of our example.” America, he was saying, was ready to resume its role as leader of the free world, a “trusted partner for peace, progress, and security.”

Rereading these lines today, in light of the Ukraine crisis, you can conclude that he has partly made good on his promise, despite the debacle in Afghanistan. He has shepherded the West into a unified position on Ukraine through careful and conciliatory diplomacy. Yet Russia’s challenge to the West today, as it amasses its troops on Ukraine’s borders, is predicated on its belief that American power is retreating, and with it the power of its example. Europe’s response, however, has been to reveal how powerful America remains.

Sleepy Joe? I don't see it. President Brandon at long last elected not to spend the holiday weekend in Delaware, instead waiting anxiously in the White House for Kamala Harris's latest tidbits of interest and intelligence, or so it would seem. The puzzling thing is that the US appears to be trying to inflame the situation:

The Washington Post obtained a copy of a letter sent from U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Bathsheba Nell Crocker to Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. The letter warned that the U.S. has “credible information that indicates Russian forces are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied the report, calling it “absolute fiction” and saying during a call with reporters: “Do you realize that this is an absolute canard, a lie? It is absolute fiction. There is no such list. It’s a fake.”

Crocker, however, wrote in her letter that the U.S. is convinced Russia would “likely target those who oppose Russian actions, including Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine, journalists and anti-corruption activists, and vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons.”

The letter also warns that Russia would commit “human rights violations and abuses” and would use extreme force against protesters.

The inclusion of the US political buzzword "LGBTQI+" suggests this is entirely for US domestic consumption. If they're so concerned about human rights abuses, why not complain about Trudeau, Ottawa, and the Mounties, who actually did commit abuses over the weekend, rather than Russia, who just might in the future? But Ambasador Bathsheba Nell Crocker is echoed by National Security Handler Jake Sullivan just this morning:

“We believe that any military operation of the size, scope and magnitude of what we believe the Russians are planning will be extremely violent,” Sullivan outlined. “It will cost the lives of Ukrainians and Russians, civilians and military personnel alike.”

“But we also have intelligence to suggest that there will be an even greater form of brutality because this will not simply be some conventional war between two armies,” he continued. “It will be a war waged by Russia on the Ukrainian people to repress them, to crush them, to harm them, and that is what we laid out in detail for the [United Nations] because we believe that the world must mobilize to counter this kind of Russian aggression should those tanks roll across the border, as we anticipate they very well may do in the coming hours or days.”

Again, he's writing Tom Clancy thrillers about imaginary wars, and he's been doing it for weeks. Each time he does it, he sheds a little more credibility, and if Putin does invade at some point down the road, people will have minimized the possibility because Sullivan's predictions failed to come true, time after time. But I'm increasingly convinced the administration is stirring up an imaginary crisis for domestic consumption.