Monthly Archives: August 2020

Some Violence Statistics

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Here are a couple of graphs, via The Wall Street Journal.

Of these 15 cities, Austin, Chicago, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Houston, New York, Columbus, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Dallas, and San Jose all have Democrat mayors. Eleven of the 15 largest cities are experiencing very large per centage increases in total homicides compared to the prior year—the year before the outbreak of rioting and looting. Only two of the 15—Democrat-run, to be sure, have experienced a per centage drop in homicides.

Here’s another graph.

Democrat-run cities have the largest per centage year-on-year increase in homicides—again, comparing with the year prior to the present year of rioting and looting—of the 50 largest cities in the US. These Democrat-run cities drive the average, also; Republican- and Independent-run cities all have significantly lower increases.

But it’s Democrat-run cities who want to defund their police departments, either partially or to the point of abolishing the police altogether.

Remember this in November.

Believable?

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Congresswoman Karen Bass (D, CA) now denies she’s a Castro simpática.

What Bass said when Fidel Castro died—in 2016, mind you—was this:

I wish to express my condolences to the Cuban people and the family of Fidel Castro. The passing of the comandante en jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba.

Now she’s claiming

…she did not realize the impact she would have by referring to Castro as commander in chief of Florida’s Cuban exile community.

Notice that: impact on the Cuban émigrés in Florida. Her original statement claimed Castro’s death was a loss to the Cuban people. On the island, as well as those who escaped to Florida, or to other nations besides the US. Apparently, she still sees Castro’s death as a loss to the people of Cuba still trapped in Cuba.

This highly talented politician—a Federal Congresswoman and high on the Progressive-Democratic Party’s short list for Vice President candidate—for whom words are her stock in trade, did not understand what she was saying, did not under stand the words and phrasing she was selecting as she wrote them for her speech.

No.

Can anyone seriously believe Bass? She spoke her truth from her heart the first time. Now she’s speaking only to cover her political behind.

American Education

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Our public school establishment has grown enormously over the last two-and-a-half generations, even as the public school student population has grown not so much, and public school performance as measured by student testing performance has not improved a single minim. The graph gives, as of 2017, the total change of the indicated personnel and student populations; you can see the changes year-by-year here [there’s a replay button at the top of that graph].

Mark Perry put his conclusion succinctly:

Bottom Line: Despite the significant increase between 1970 and 2017 in the number of public school teachers (57%) and non-teaching staff (151%) relative to the 10.4% increase in students, the significant 30% decrease in the pupil-to-[teacher] ratio in public schools and the significant 154% increase in inflation-adjusted spending per pupil attending public schools over that period, there was basically no change in academic achievement. More spending + more teachers + more administrators + no change in education outcomes = a failing public school monopoly that benefits entrenched unionized teachers who vigorously try to squash competition from charter schools and educational choice at the expense of taxpayers, parents, and students.

What he said.

Which puts a premium on two distinct, but each necessary, actions: defanging the teachers unions and expanding parental access to schooling alternatives like voucher schools and charter schools.

Critical to that second item is this: per-student school funding via taxpayer monies needs to stop being school funding and be transformed into student funding: the monies need to accompany the student to the school the parents select for him. If the parents choose home-schooling as their alternative, they should get, in lieu of full-up per-student funding, an allowance to cover teaching material and supply expenses. And, conditioned on performance on State-mandated testing, a serious honorarium for their teacher labor, with the allowance plus honorarium not exceeding the per-student funding rate.

Flynn, Mandamus, and the DC Circuit

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The DC Circuit has decided to rehear General Michael Flynn’s request for a mandamus ruling ordering the DC District Court to accept Flynn’s motion—agreed and proffered by DoJ—to drop entirely the case against Flynn. The Circuit plainly does not trust the original Circuit ruling to issue the mandamus and so to order the lower court.

The Wall Street Journal has opined on the matter. While I disagree with the DC Circuit’s decision to retry the Flynn mandamus appeal en banc, I more strongly disagree with the WSJ‘s rationale for not rehearing it.

It will stoke more public cynicism about the politicization of the judiciary. This alone ought to have persuaded the DC Circuit not to rehear its panel’s decision.

No court should hear or not hear a case, or rule in a particular direction, based on public perception of the court. Every court—if it’s to preserve the legitimacy of the court and of the judiciary as a whole—must make those hear/rule decisions based only on the merits of the case at hand.

That is the subject and purpose of the judges’ oaths of office and the subject and purpose of the Judicial Branch.

Hong Kong’s Elections

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They were scheduled for 6 September. Now they’re delayed by the People’s Republic of China for a year; although it was Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam who delivered the news.

Officially, the delay is due to the Wuhan Virus. However, the virus situation has been known for some months, but just before the decision to delay,

12 pro-democracy candidates were disqualified from running in the poll, for reasons including perceived subversive intentions, opposition to the new security law, and campaigning to win a legislation-blocking majority.

There it is in all its naked glory: that new security law that lets the PRC government in Beijing determine what is subversive and so criminal. Included in the current definition is democracy: it’s a crime for Hong Kongers to try to elect city legislators that will represent them rather than Beijing.

The move has one additional outcome: in the absence of a City legislature, the government of the PRC will fill the legislative vacuum.

This is freedom PRC style.