New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D) seem terrified of them. Cuomo has flatly refused to risk a debate with his Republican challenger, Marc Molinaro, and Gillibrand reneged—at the last minute—on a commitment to last Sunday’s scheduled debate with her Republican challenger, Chele Farley.
It’s not too late, though. Both Molinaro and Farley should debate empty chairs, and their final question should be “What are you so terrified of?”
The modern Left and their Progressive-Democratic Party are showing their true heart, and there’s no room for freedom in it; there’s not even room for disagreement.
The Progressive-Democrat movement already has attempted to mass murder Republican Congressmen gathered for a baseball practice, nearly succeeding in the case of Steve Scalise (R, LA).
Now we have two Republican candidates for Minnesota state office being assaulted.
One suffered a concussion from his assault; the other was assaulted as she (!) tried to prevent the theft of campaign yard signs already erected in yards.
The campaign manager—another woman—for the Republican candidate for Nevada Governor was physically assaulted and held against a wall by a George Soros (a Party-approved 1%-er)-backed PAC employee after the thug had forced his way into a private room where a conference was in progress. This same person had previously physically assaulted the Interior Secretary’s press secretary—still another woman (is there a pattern here?), and she filed criminal charges right after—so the Progressive-Democrat-supporting PAC knew who they were hiring.
Any one of these could easily have been written off as the isolated attacks of Left-wing loons. But together they aggregate into the Party’s true attitude: they all come on the heels of attempts to intimidate Presidential Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX); Senator Mitch McConnell (R, KY); Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao; and many other Republicans with loud, deliberately disruptive protests designed to completely prevent them from going about their personal business in restaurants, even walking to their cars, milder intimidation attempts that failed.
This all comes, also, against the backdrop of Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D, CA) and Senator Spartacus (D, NJ) calling for people to harass Republicans wherever encountered or to come up in their faces, Party queen Hillary Clinton saying civility with Republicans is impossible and ex-Attorney General Eric Holder (D) calling for Republicans to be kicked when they “go low.”
This all comes, also, with the Left’s Antifa taking over the streets of Portland or assaulting those whom they simply don’t like.
This all comes with Progressive-Democrat billionaire Tom Steyer (another of the Party-approved 1%-ers) looking to buy a House impeachment claque.
This all comes with some members of the Progressive-Democratic Party leadership mildly calling for (their version of) civility but doing nothing to back their empty rhetoric, or others of that leadership remaining altogether silent.
Keep this in mind as you decide for whom to vote. And do go vote.
Chao Deng’s piece in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal chronicled the failure of People’s Republic of China rampant infrastructure spending to stimulate economic activity.
China bolstered economic growth for decades by pouring trillions of dollars into roads, factories, railroads and more, and doubled down to protect the economy from the global financial crisis of the last decade.
Deng went to lengths to point out that, for all those trillions, businesses did not appear, factories remain unused, roads and railroads are only lightly traveled, and even the high rise apartment buildings remain largely empty.
He—and the PRC government—missed the root cause of the fruitlessness of that spending.
Build it and they will come only works in a free market economy where no one needs government permission to engage in economic (or any other) activity.
Poland enacted a law at the start of the year that lowered the mandatory retirement age of all of its judges from 70 to 65. This resulted, among other things, in the required retirement for 27 of the nation’s 72 Supreme Court judges (a too-big Court, anyway IMNSHO, and they ought not be replaced, but that’s a separate story).
The ruling Law and Justice (PiS [Prawo i Sprawiedliwość]) party says the changes are necessary to a justice system they say is controlled by an untouchable “caste” of judges steeped in communist-era mentality.
The European Union has demurred.
The Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice said Friday that Poland must delay implementation of a law that came into force earlier this year requiring early retirement for nearly 40% of the court’s judges. Poland could face fines if it doesn’t comply, but more significantly such a move would represent an unprecedented threat to the authority of the bloc’s top court.
The Polish judges sent into retirement must be allowed to return to work, the ruling said.
That supposed threat to the ECJ may, in fact, be the crux of the matter: the EU must reign supreme over the member nations.
Whether retiring the judges is a good idea or not is a good idea or not, it’s an internal, domestic affair for Poland to decide.
Joining the EU plainly requires the surrender of a potful of national sovereignty far beyond such outward looking matters as national borders, trade rules, and the like.
Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, had some thoughts on how the US should interact with today’s People’s Republic of China. Among other things, he wants three key areas of disagreement to be accepted and…managed. (I’ll leave aside his blithe, and erroneous, assertion that the “trade war” between the PRC and us is our doing and not the PRC’s.)
The most realistic option for the future is to focus on managing the two countries’ major disagreements. This approach has worked for four decades when it comes to Taiwan.
No, that’s a demonstration of the utter failure of “managing the two countries'” disputes. That approached has contributed to the Republic of China’s expulsion from the UN Security Council and from the UN altogether. It has contributed to the PRC’s threats and political near-dominance of the RoC.
Management is also likely to be the best approach for the South China Sea. As with Taiwan, “final status” issues are best left vague.
And by extension, the supposed optimal approach to the PRC’s harassment of Japan and Japanese islands in the East China Sea as the PRC pushes to seize that water. Again, no. All “management” has done so far in the South China Sea is lead to acceding to the PRC’s seizure of islands owned by the nations rimming the Sea, or owned in disagreement only with others of the rim. All “management” has done so far is lead to acceding to PRC militarization of the islands it has seized from those nations and to routine harassment of shipping passing through international waters around those seized islands and aircraft overflying them.
In other domains, the US will simply have to accept China for what it is. China will continue to maintain a large (if somewhat reduced) state role in the economy and a closed political structure.
Again, no. The PRC as it is, is a nation that routinely steals other nations’ companies’ proprietary information, that demands “sharing” of technology and other proprietary intellectual property as a condition of doing business inside the PRC, and that demands those companies install “back doors” to allow the PRC government ready access to those same tech and IP materials. All “management” does here is meekly accept the PRC’s economic dishonesty.
Hass’ proposals amount to drift into surrender. This is unacceptable.