Daily Archives: 29 April 2020

An Appellate Court Error

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The 6th Circuit has this one.  Gary B v Whitmer concerns children in a really poorly performing Detroit public schools: miserable classroom conditions and abysmal test scores.

The appellate court decided, though, that this matter had nothing to do with the quality of the schools, over which the court has no jurisdiction, and everything to due process as delineated in our Constitution’s 14th Amendment, within which the court does have some jurisdiction.

Acting within that capacity, the court manufactured out of whole cloth, a brand, spanking new right: a state-funded education. Whereby this appellate court has also asserted the Federal government’s right and authority to dictate to a State on matters which the court acknowledges to belong to the State and not to the Federal government.

The Wall Street Journal noticed one of the foolishnesses of this ruling [emphasis added]:

The decision…notes there is a history of public education in the US and “a substantial relationship between access to education and access to economic and political power.” Surely the same could be said of home ownership. Does the Constitution command subsidized housing? “Property,” unlike education, is at least mentioned in the Constitution.

Indeed. And [emphasis added here, too]:

When judges invent new rights they can also damage the democratic process. The Supreme Court has warned against the Due Process Clause being “subtly transformed into the policy preferences of the Members of this Court.” Yet that’s what will happen if federal judges are put in charge of state and local education policy. The majority says poor education undermines democracy, and that’s right—but judicial imperialism threatens it even more.

That brings to mind, also, CJ Taft’s remarks in an earlier case:

The good sought in unconstitutional legislation is an insidious feature because it leads citizens and legislators of good purpose to promote it without thought of the serious breach it will make in the ark of our covenant or the harm which will come from breaking down recognized standards.

So it is, too, with extra-Constitutional judicial rulings.

The 6th Circuit’s ruling can be read here.

Another Reason

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…to move our supply chains out of the People’s Republic of China, a reason the rest of the world ought to take seriously, also. The PRC government has been lying about its African swine fever epidemic, after the disease has killed 120 million of the PRC’s hogs. That’s a bit over 1/6 of the PRC’s hogs.

As China has largely brought the coronavirus pandemic under control within its borders, another highly contagious disease—one affecting livestock [African swine fever]—is reappearing and raising questions about the accuracy of the country’s reporting.
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Since mid-March, China’s Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs has reported a spate of new cases across the country, supporting what some independent veterinary and farming consultants have been saying since late 2019: the disease is still rife.

Maybe the PRC has its Wuhan Virus epidemic under control.  More and more evidence is coming up that indicates the situation there is far worse than that government has been reporting.

Regarding the African swine fever, here’s the USDA on the PRC’s livestock in general, per its April report:

Underreporting is rampant as government agencies at all levels face serious challenges in collecting and reporting outbreak information from swine farms. Some farms are reluctant to report outbreaks for fear of economic losses, while others report being actively discouraged [from disclosing cases of African swine fever].

There are a couple of problems with this. One is that while the African swine fever isn’t a threat to humans, it’s 100% fatal to pigs. What happens if some number—even small—of PRC hogs get shipped to other nations and spread the effects? The world’s hog farms and pork food supply would be put at risk.

The other problem is, given the PRC’s lies about these two viruses, what else are the nation’s government and its Communist Party of China lying about that puts the world at risk, but that we haven’t discovered yet?

It’s…difficult…to do business with a nation whose government lies and coverups are such evident and serious threats to the security of other nations.

It’s impossible to be dependent, through supply chain dependency, on such a nation and maintain one’s own national security at the same time.