Boeing lost $5.15 bn defense order and gained powerful Airbus competitor in retaliation for duties against Canada’s Bombardier
Boeing has just lost an estimated $5.15 billion defense order from Canada in retaliation for the duties levied by the US Commerce Department’s against Canada’s Bombardier on Boeing’s request. Boeing’s attack on Bombardier was the subject of a lead article in a previous issue in Founders Broadsheet. and a follow-up article which reported on how Boeing’s attack resulted in the creation of an even more formidable competitor to Boeing in the form of an Airbus-Bombardier merger. The two retaliations against Boeing’s trade complaint — Bombardier wasn’t even a competitor to any of Boeing’s existing planes — are a foretaste of what the consequences will be if the Trump administration continues on its protectionist bent: costly retaliations and new trade deals missed. It could also result in pro-trade Republican congressmen acquiescing to Democratic efforts to drive President Trump from office.
Progressives demand you affirm other people’s self-identity or face jail
Transgender logo
A thought-provoking essay by Notre Dame scholar Vincent Phillip Muñoz contrasts traditional notions of freedom with the notion espoused by Progressives and exemplified by the suit initiated by two gays against a Colorado baker who declined to bake them a wedding cake. The case, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, is now before the US Supreme Court. Professor Muñoz notes that the view of freedom that Progressives are seeking to enshrine is that one must have “one’s identity affirmed by others….If one’s identity is not respected or recognized or affirmed—if one is “disrespected,” to use an awkward term—one is denied equality.”
This presumably is also the philosophical notion behind the new California law that prescribes punishment for using the wrong gender pronoun — which might offend a transgender person.
Anti-Trump administration opposition, update
Moore accuser admits adding date to yearbook
One of Alabama senatorial candidate Roy Moore’s accusers has admitted that she, not Moore, wrote part of the yearbook entry that she previously attributed to Moore as evidence against him.
CNN and CBS published a false report that President Trump’s son was offered secret access to the supposedly Russia-curated Wikileaks emails before these were made public. Both publications got their dates wrong. The leaks were already in the public domain.
The big news — far bigger than Watergate — concerns the continuing revelations of Obama administration subversion of the Justice Department and FBI, among other agencies, to sabotage the Trump campaign. And since many of the implicated officials still remain at Justice, they not surprisingly are turning up as playing key roles in the Mueller investigation, which is seeking to complete the effort that didn’t succeed during the campaign. For those prepared to dive into the details, here is a summary.
For more time-constrained mortals we summarize three shorter reports:
- Mueller’s indictment of Flynn was to provide insurance that Trump couldn’t terminate Mueller’s investigation without facing accusations of obstruction of justice;
- Tucker Carlson has found yet another Hillary Clinton partisan amidst the Mueller investigating team;
- and the Washington Examiner‘s Byron York details the extent of the Obama administration’s early and extensive involvement in trying to use the Democratic National Committee-funded Steele dossier and the FBI to bring down the Trump campaign — and current stonewalling by the FBI and Justice Department as to what was done and when.
hat tip: Eaglebeak
Egg-on-face story: Russia and the Winter Olympics
The Atlantic has the best account we’ve seen as to why the Russians who compete in the next Winter Olympics won’t be doing so under a Russia banner: “How the Kremlin Tried to Rig the Olympics, and Failed: A study in humiliation.”
The Utah monuments controversy
Bear Ears National Monument
Cato’s Randall O’Toole has an interesting idea as to how to depoliticize controversies over the use of federal lands, as well as address adequate funding for “wildfire, endangered species, and a wide variety of other issues.”
Science news
Discoveries in North Africa, Asia, and Australia are forcing a rewrite of the earliest human history.
ITER break-even fusion machine, 50% complete
Looking toward the future rather than the distance past, the ITER nuclear fusion project says it has just reached a halfway milestone toward its goal of break-even electric power generation by 2025 but isn’t yet assured of the Trump administration’s funding contribution.
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