| ◼ Early voting began in Virginia, and Amendment 1, a brazenly radical abortion measure, is on the ballot. The amendment would preclude future Virginia legislatures from enacting laws that would even slightly restrict late-term abortion or “gender-affirming care.” It would enshrine Virginia’s existing abortion laws, which were expanded in a law signed by Governor Ralph Northam in 2020. Under current Virginia law, a mother may receive an abortion in the third trimester when the continuation of her pregnancy is likely to result in her death or “irremediably” impaired physical or mental health. Multiple doctors must judge the procedure necessary. Amendment 1 would loosen these restrictions while allowing a single physician to make the final and fatal judgment. Under the amendment, medical professionals who have obtained their patient’s “voluntary consent” would also be protected from legal consequences for botched abortions or transgender surgeries, including prosecution, professional discipline by medical authorities, and lawsuits. Not only could this give legal immunity to a future Kermit Gosnell in the Commonwealth; it seems aimed at insulating doctors who perform gender-reassignment surgery on minors from malpractice suits akin to those that have been filed in states such as New York. Amendment 1, although given misleadingly anodyne ballot language, represents a step into dystopia for Virginia. It should be voted down.
◼ Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) released a video lambasting private equity firms for acquiring restaurant chains such as Jersey Mike’s Subs. She alleges that investors have gotten rich by hiking food prices, reducing portion sizes, and degrading quality. In reality, private equity firms do better when the companies they buy attract more customers, and few industries are more competitive than casual dining. Firms aim to eventually sell a turned-around business for a profit, which can’t happen if sales decline. Consumers are free to reward restaurants with good service and fair prices—or to punish those that offer the opposite—with their wallets. Evidence suggests that if private equity does anything to Americans’ lunch spots, it improves efficiency and cleanliness while modestly reducing prices. Blackstone trimmed some of the C-suite fat and took Jersey Mike’s public this summer. It is doing just fine. If another chain is mismanaged by new ownership, no one has to eat there.
◼ Speaking at her annual “state of the European Union” address, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, announced that she would like to see Canada become “the first associate member of the European Union.” Canada’s ambassador-designate to the EU, however, said he did not know what associate membership might mean. In that, he was not alone. No EU treaty defines this concept. Von der Leyen has merely invented it, and America’s best response to her move would be a display of polite indifference. The EU does not tend to move rapidly, and many Canadians will understand that Brussels can be tricky to deal with. America’s worst response, however, would be to threaten the EU. The trading relationship between the EU and the U.S. is already fragile, and disrupting it at a time of acute geopolitical tension would increase the temptation for China and Russia to test the unity of the Western alliance. Further bellicosity on Trump’s part would also push Ottawa more toward Brussels. If the administration can refrain from muscling into the dance between Brussels and Ottawa, the EU’s own incompetence and arrogance will ensure that the associate membership fantasy quickly fades.
◼ The United Kingdom’s Celtic fringe may soon be mussed up again. In an interparty meeting in Cardiff, the nationalist first ministers of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, all of which enjoy—if that is the word—devolved status, talked to Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of the opposition in Dublin. They signed a memorandum designed to signal that the Scots and the Welsh were continuing their long march to independence, as were the Northern Irish to Irish unification. No matter that, on the basis of recent polling, these are not outcomes desired by the people of Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland. The last of whom, meanwhile, along with the London government, have been angered by Trump’s comment that he’d “love” to see a united Ireland, an objective that would not be achieved peacefully anytime soon and would also come at a heavy financial cost to Dublin. An independent Scotland and Wales would struggle economically and would not be welcomed into the EU because its member states have reasons of their own not to reward separatism. Vladimir Putin, however, would be thrilled to see a breakup of the U.K.
◼ The Pulitzer Prize–winning essayist Nikole Hannah-Jones made a name for herself critiquing American pedagogy. Over the course of her unproductive but accolade-studded career, she has managed to smuggle a revisionist history of America into the nation’s curricula, and she has advised countless educational institutions. But it turns out that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and never has. In a confessional op-ed, Hannah-Jones revealed that her ideological commitment led her to enroll her daughter in one of New York City’s majority-black public schools, despite her daughter’s objections. This resulted in her daughter’s poor education, which Hannah-Jones only began to recognize as the child prepared to enter middle school. But while the author expressed some regret over her choices, she remains committed to a delusional worldview in which American schools are “segregated” and educating children in them is functionally impossible. In the end, Hannah-Jones’s daughter got exactly what her mother wanted for her—a “strong sense of her identity.” But she didn’t get an education. It seems that her mother didn’t either. |
