Monthly Archives: May 2020

Economic Reopening, Resistance, and Perspective

Posted on by
Reply

As States reopen for business, and as increasing numbers of businesses reopen and customers patronize them against State government encouragements or outright diktats to the contrary, Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden is nattering on that President Donald Trump’s policies are undermining the core pillars of our economic strength. In the meantime, the NLMSM is focusing ghoulishly on body counts and not mentioning any other relevant information.

The following table looks at some data for three States mentioned in one Wall Street Journal article, another State mentioned in a different WSJ article, and two States mentioned by Fox News.

State Wuhan Virus Deaths Wuhan Virus Recoveries Ratio of Wuhan Virus Recoveries to Deaths
Illinois 3,406 Not Reported
California 2,719 Not Reported
New York 26,682 58,006 2.17
Georgia 1,441 Not Reported
Michigan 4,555 22,686 4.98
Texas 1,095 21,022 19.20

Wuhan Virus data are from Johns Hopkins University’s CSSE Dashboard and were current as of 11 May.

Carefully ignored by Biden in his meandering and by the NLMSM in their panic-mongering are those recovery rates and ratios. Check the CSSE data—all of the States reporting recovery rates are reporting recovery-to-death ratios of at least 2:1, and generally much larger.

Progressive-Democrats in charge of their States, despite these favorable trends though, want to keep their States locked down and having no economic activity—all in the claimed name of safety. Of course the longer States stay shut down, the deeper will be the economic recession we’re facing at the end of summer and into the November elections.

Note, though, that wanting a recession explicitly as a means of defeating President Donald Trump in this election has been a key part of the Progressive-Democrats’ playbook for two years.

Be very heads up this November.

Credibility

Posted on by
2

As the journalism guild’s complicity in the General Michael Flynn travesty becomes steadily more apparent, some questions arise—again—about what an honest journalism industry (not guild—that’s beyond redemption) needs to do to have any credibility.

  1. identify at least some the sources, rather than hanging an article’s thesis exclusively on the claims of anonymous sources
  2. if an anonymous source refuses to be identified, show with concrete, measurable evidence the following:
    1. the source actually exists
    2. if the source exists, then
      1. why the source should be believed, given that by speaking publicly, even if anonymously, he’s likely violating his terms of employment if not his oath of office
      2. why the source should be believed, given that by hiding behind anonymity, he’s displaying his cowardice—and cowards will always and only say what they believe will be personally beneficial
  3. if representing the anonymous source as a whistleblower, provide concrete, measurable evidence that the source has used up all of his employer’s internal whistleblowing channels before he decided to leak

All of this is best done in the opening paragraph(s) of an article, ahead even of the Who, What, Where, When that used to form the lede of quality journalism. That unavoidably will make for a clumsy opening to what’s being represented as a factual news article (rather than an opinion piece), but that’s the cost incurred of a guild’s prolonged, insistent dishonesty.

Even more importantly, though, the press used to have a standard that required two on-the-record sources to corroborate the claims of a journalist’s anonymous sources. The industry’s Editors-in-Chief—every single one of them—must explain:

  1. why they have chosen to walk away from that standard of integrity
  2. what standard of integrity they’re using in its stead

Finally, Some Recognition

Posted on by
Reply

…of the role of Federal laws in State activities. Recall that two New Jersey officials of then-Governor Chris Christie’s (R) administration were convicted in Federal court for

hav[ing] participated in a 2013 scheme to create traffic backups in Fort Lee, NJ, by limiting motorists’ access to the George Washington Bridge that crosses into New York—in retaliation against Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, for not supporting the re-election bid of Mr Christie, a Republican.

The Supreme Court, unanimously, tossed those convictions. The unanimity of the throwing out is made the more noteworthy by this money quote, by none other than Justice Elena Kagan, who wroteg for the Court:

not every corrupt act by state or local officials is a federal crime.

Think about that for a bit.

It’s a Start

Posted on by
Reply

But it can’t possibly be the final answer; it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has issued the final rule regarding college/university sexual harassment complaints and how colleges/universities must handle them. Along the way, DeVos revoked with finality the Obama DoEd rule that eliminated the rights of the accused.

It allows both the accused and accuser to submit evidence and participate in cross-examination in live proceedings, and both parties can also appeal a school’s ruling. Victims-rights advocates say the provision for cross-examinations could traumatize those alleging misconduct and potentially keep them from filing complaints at all.
It also allows institutions to choose one of two standards of evidence—”clear and convincing,” or the lower “preponderance of the evidence,” which just requires a greater than 50% likelihood of wrongdoing—as long as they apply the standard evenly for all cases

The victim’s rights advocates objections can be dismissed out of hand—they’ve never been interested in due process or the rights of the accused.

However.

There should be no ability for the accuser to keep appealing until she gets the ruling she wants. A ruling that the boy didn’t do what he was accused of doing should be final.

Too, there should be no choice in the standards of evidence. The accused too often is being charged with a crime or a near crime. The only legitimate standard of evidence should be clear and convincing, and any…guilty verdict…should be required to be arrived at “beyond reasonable doubt.”

Furthermore, there needs to be a better limit on the cases a college/university is permitted to investigate. An outside, unaffiliated party should determine whether the misbehavior being alleged would be a crime. If the determination is that a crime is being alleged, then the matter should be turned over to the police—not the campus police, but the local police or sheriff’s department—for investigation. If appropriate, the case then should be turned over to the local prosecutor. Colleges/universities are not qualified to investigate allegations of crimes.

This rule is far better than the travesty that Obama and his Education Department inflicted on our students. That was a very low bar, though.

A First Amendment Case

Posted on by
Reply

Oral argument on a 1st Amendment case was heard by the Supreme Court last Wednesday. The case centers on

whether or not a 1991 law that protects people from receiving unwarranted telemarketer calls is a violation of the First Amendment when applied to political organizations.

This strikes me as a no-brainer that never should have gotten out of any District court. The 1st Amendment bars the abridgment of political speech in the public square. It does not take away the right of private citizens to decide for themselves what speech they will hear from within their own, private property.

That private property is entered by telephone as surely as it is by the speaker’s physical presence, and those resident on the property have no more obligation to allow the speaker’s telephonic entry than they do the speaker’s physical entry.

Nor does the 1st Amendment create a right of a political speaker—or any other speaker, or any person in any guise—to use another person’s private property to speak, nor does it create an obligation of the property owner to allow that use.  This applies to land lines terminating in a home or private business, and it applies to a wireless telephone, or a cell phone, or any other communications device wherever its owner might happen to be at the time of the political speech effort.

The Supreme Court should so rule, and it shouldn’t take long or very many pages at all to convey the ruling.