Monthly Archives: July 2019

The Cost of a Celebration

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President Donald Trump held America’s Independence Day celebration with a Salute to America, centered at the Lincoln Memorial.

Together, we are part of one of the greatest stories ever told—the story of America.  Today, just as it did 243 years ago, the future of American Freedom rests on the shoulders of men and women willing to defend it.

Just to pick out a couple of things: The Wall Street Journal cited “Democrats” complaining about

the use of military hardware for a traditionally nonpartisan celebration.

Because defending our nation’s existence and celebrating those who do that defense isn’t nonpartisan.  Sure.

And this one:

The Pentagon has said it wouldn’t have cost estimates until next week at the earliest.

I have some estimates now—not on the costs of the military units’ performances, but on those costs unique to their participation in the Salute to America celebration.

The aircraft—and their pilots—used consisted of

B-2 stealth bomber
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
F-22 Raptor
F/A-18 Hornet
Air Force One
Marine One

Their cost that’s unique to the celebration is a good approximation of zero.  Those sorties flown—every single one of them—count as nav currency sorties and formation-keeping currency sorties, and they are a direct substitute for sorties that otherwise would have to be flown as part of any pilot’s currency training.  Furthermore, the fuel and maintenance resulting from the sorties also are already accounted for in those required currency sorties.

M1 Abrams tanks
M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles

Here, the costs will be somewhat incremental, but some—the transport part—will count for existing currency requirements, similarly to the aircraft costs.

The incremental costs just aren’t that great.

A Bit on the Citizenship Question

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The Electronic Privacy Information Center sued Commerce and the Census Bureau in Federal court over the inclusion of a citizenship question in the upcoming census.  EPIC centered its case on the premise that these agencies must explain the impact on privacy of such a question prior to

initiating a collection of new information

when that collection involves electronically stored, personally identifiable information.

The DC Circuit correctly tossed the case on the grounds that EPIC had suffered no harm, so it had no standing to sue.

That’s too bad, though, because EPIC also was wrong on the facts.  Between 1970 and 2010, the Census Bureau, in addition to a short-form census form sent to everyone present in the US, sent a long-form census form to a significant subset of that population, and that long-form version contained the citizenship question.  As recently as 1950, the census included the citizenship question on every form sent out.  As recently as 1960, the census asked after place of birth—which clearly is a citizenship question, since being born under US jurisdiction (vis., in the US, on a US military installation on foreign soil, etc) makes one a citizen.

The conclusion is obvious.  Nor Commerce nor the Census Bureau have any obligation to conduct a “privacy impact” assessment and publish any statement of that impact: Census isn’t collecting new information; it’s merely attempting to resume collecting information it routinely had collected in the recent past.

Separately, I won’t go far into how the 14th Amendment makes the question an absolute necessity, except to point out the following.  Section 2 of the 14th says this [emphasis added]:

But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

While representation is apportioned according to the number of persons present in each State, the sanction for abridging the right to vote is based on citizenship, not mere presence.  (Lest anyone get their panties in a bunch over that “male citizens” part, the 19th Amendment cleared that.)  It’s impossible to carry out that sanction without knowing the number of actual citizens in each State.

And with Progressive-Democrats constantly bleating about voter suppression, the ability to apply that sanction clearly is necessary.

Free Speech

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…Progressive-Democrat style.  Here’s Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D, FL):

people who are “making fun of members of Congress” online “should be prosecuted”

Because, she went on, making fun of Congress intimidates Congressmen.  In fact, she went on in that vein for more than 40 seconds, just in the recording.

Wow.

A Whole Year

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That’s how close Iran is to getting a nuclear weapon.  The Wall Street Journal‘s subheadline tells the tale.

Tehran exceeded a key limit in the 2015 deal but experts say that it is only a small step and that it would take Tehran at least a year to make a weapon

That’s how far away from nuclear armament Iran would have been under the JCPOA on that deal’s expiration.  After all,

The 2015 deal was structured to make sure that Iran would take a year to amass enough material for a weapon if it chose to break the accord.

A whole year.

Hong Kong Protests

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And the People’s Republic of China threatens.  Hong Kong citizens have been protesting a PRC-endorsed law proposal that would allow Hong Kongese and others resident in or visiting Hong Kong to be extradited to the mainland for trial in the PRC’s government-run court system.

[The PRC’s] government signaled its fraying patience with protesters in Hong Kong after they stormed the city’s legislature, calling the violent turn a direct challenge to Beijing’s authority and suggesting it would have to be answered.
Public statements from Beijing marked a shift in Chinese leaders’ attitude toward the crisis in the semiautonomous territory, indicating they may be forced to step in….

Consistent with that, the PLA’s Hong Kong garrison has begun “emergency handling” exercises.

And this:

The [PRC] government’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office called the protests a “blatant challenge to the bottom line of ‘one country, two systems’….”

Hardly.  The PRC’s proposed extradition law for Hong Kong is a deliberate threat to the two systems part.  Yet, here’s Zhang Jian, Associate Research Fellow at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies:

The suspension of the bill is tantamount to a withdrawal. There is no more room for backing down, no more ground for retreating.

This, of course, is nonsense. Suspension is not withdrawal, it’s a deliberate attempt to keep the extradition bill alive for later, quieter reconsideration and for enactment out of site of the peasantry. There’s plenty of room for continued action: the actual withdrawal of the bill.

Beijing has often appeared tolerant in the face of mass protests in mainland China and Hong Kong—and when passions and attention fade, authorities detain, attack, or otherwise punish ringleaders to prevent a recurrence.

To be sure, that’s a faux patience, and the tanks may well roll across the bridges, just as they rolled into Tiananmen Square not so very long ago when another bunch of uppity peasants demanded freedom.