Monthly Archives: June 2023

Sandbagging

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General Li Shangfu, the People’s Republic of China’s Minister of National Defense, says war between the US and the PRC would be an unbearable disaster for the world, and further,

China seeks to develop a new type of major-country relationship with the United States. As for the US side, it needs to act with sincerity, match its words with deeds, and take concrete actions together with China to stabilize the relations and prevent further deterioration.

Li says this against the backdrop of the PRC actively preparing for war with us as a part of its preparation for invading and conquering the Republic of China. If Li’s words are accurate, then the PRC side needs to act with sincerity, match its words with deeds, and take concrete action with the United States to stabilize relations and prevent further deterioration.

That concrete action begins with the PRC ending its threats against the RoC, including ceasing its preparations for invasion and disbanding the units assembled for that purpose. That sincere action needs to be followed by the PRC side’s withdrawal from its seizure of the South China Sea and from its occupation of the islands of that Sea, islands that are owned by (if disputed among) the other nations rimming the Sea. The PRC then needs to cease its aggressive moves in the East China Sea, including its moves against the Japanese islands there.

Along the way, the PRC must leave off from its hostile acts against military aircraft and shipping that are operating in international airspace and international waters.

If the PRC side chooses not to do those things, if the PRC side continues on its present course, Li’s words will be revealed to be completely insincere, to be a cynical effort at sandbagging.

“Be More Like Europe”

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That’s the mantra of the Left-Wing extremists who have become the center Left, and that was the rationalization of the Progressive-Democratic Party, of which those extremists have become the center, as Party pushed, those years ago, Obamacare, their precursor to socialized medicine.

Today, there’s this, from the part of Europe that is Great Britain. GB’s National Health Service, the Party’s model for what they want Obamacare to become has achieved this milestone:

More than 18,000 people died in Scotland last year [2022] while on NHS waiting lists[.]

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar pointed out that the NHS wait list death toll (already far too high IMNSHO) just six years ago was 7,868.

This is what socialist medicine does to honest citizens.

That’s Easy

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Progressive-Democratic Party politicians claim they want to prevent a future [debt ceiling] standoff by trying to defuse the borrowing limit as a weapon.

Congressman Brendan Boyle (D, PA), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said there is an increasing number of Democrats who want to fundamentally change the debt-ceiling process, with many colleagues recognizing it is “just insanity to keep doing this over and over and over again.”

Boyle also said this, as though it were a bad thing:

Because we have been fixated on this issue for months and months, we are dramatically behind on all the rest of the legislative work that Congress has to get done.

Actually, the only things Congress has to get done, and it would take very little time were Party to stop being obstructionist, are to pass a budget and then lower personal and corporate income tax rates across the board and pass the dozen separate appropriations bills that give effect to that budget.

As I wrote during an earlier debt ceiling fight,

Getting this profligacy [in spending] under control—eliminating that profligacy—is the only way to get rid of budget deficits, and the elimination of those deficits—not their reduction, but their elimination—is the only way to avoid having to repeatedly increase the amount of our borrowing, the only way to eliminate the “need” to repeatedly raise the debt ceiling….

Eliminating debt ceiling fights should be perfectly straightforward to do. However, those politicians are congenitally incapable of reducing spending. They still can’t even say the words “cut spending.”

Gone is Gone

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In the court case that has Disney suing Florida over the State’s cancelation of some Disney-created development deals, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis had moved to force the then-presiding US District (Northern District of Florida) Judge Mark Walker to recuse himself.

Walker had seemingly demonstrated his bias when he remarked in a couple of unrelated cases that the Disney-Florida situation was an example of “state retaliation.”

Walker in the end did recuse himself, but not over his apparent bias. Instead, he raised a separate ethics matter: a close relative owns 30 shares ($2,700 worth at the time) of Walt Disney Company.

The size or dollar amount of the third-degree relative’s financial interest is irrelevant. Even though I believe it is highly unlikely that these proceedings will have a substantial effect on The Walt Disney Company, I choose to err on the side of caution which, here, is also the side of judicial integrity—and disqualify myself.

Whether the reason claimed by Walker for his recusal is rationalization (the appearance of a conflict of interest is small compared to the apparent bias claim) or serious, he’s off the case. And that’s to the net good for the case and for both parties.

Yet Another Excuse by a Progressive-Democrat

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Virginia’s Progressive-Democratic Senator Tim Kaine wrote a brief letter to The Wall Street Journal‘s Friday Letters. He had proposed an amendment to the debt ceiling bill that would remove completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and in his letter, he actually claimed this as his rationalization:

I support reforms to the permitting process for energy projects. But cherry-picking one project….

And yet Kaine has proposed zero serious permitting reforms in his tenure in the Senate. Instead, he’s happy to carp from the safety of the sidelines regarding MVP, rather than—since he was proposing an amendment anyway—offering an amendment that would have generalized the MVP “exception.”

Go figure.