Monthly Archives: December 2023

Federal Intimidation

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The Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden now is trying to cow school districts into pushing Progressive-Democratic Party gender identity and sexual orientation ideology by threatening to withhold Federal funding from the districts’ free and reduced-price school lunch programs.

This is Party using children as hostage in its push for that destructive claptrap. Those programs often provide the only healthy meal those children get in a school day, and denying those children is a blatant attempt to intimidate those districts into compliance with Party ideology. Party’s ransom demand is the surrender of those children to Party diktat.

Aside from that deep immorality, the move also is illegal. South Dakota v Dole made clear that the Federal government cannot use threats of withholding funding in order to coerce compliance with Federal diktats regarding intra-State, or local, behaviors. Dole was a case in which the Federal government withheld a percentage of Federal highway funding from South Dakota over its refusal to comply with a then-recently enacted alcohol drinking age limit, and South Dakota objected to the withholding. The ruling held that the Feds could, indeed, withhold a percentage of Federal funding, but it could not do withhold a high enough fraction to be coercive. Withholding all of the school lunch funding is plainly coercive, and it’s intended to be so.

It Needs Disrupting

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It seems that the US Navy’s USS Gabrielle Giffords, a littoral combat ship, sailed too close to Second Thomas Shoal to suit the People’s Republic of China, and the PLA’s Southern Theater objected.

The US deliberately disrupted the situation in the South China Sea, seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined regional peace and stability, and seriously violated international law and basic norms governing international relations, fully demonstrating that the US is the biggest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea[.]

This is plainly untrue; no PRC sovereignty was violated since the shoal is owned by the Republic of the Philippines. Nevertheless, the PRC continued its provocations and tacit threats by having its naval force “mobilize” and track the Giffords.

In response to this latest PRC attempt at intimidation, the US Navy—and Australia, India, and Japan, the other members of the Quad—should send groups of combat ships (not just onesies and twosies) into the same area, conduct combat and surveillance aircraft flyovers, and engage in tracking PLAN shipping in the area.

The situation in the South China Sea badly wants disruption and the situation restored to its condition prior to the PRC’s invasion of the Sea and its occupation of all those islands owned by the other nations rimming the Sea.

Take Appropriate Action

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In response to Iran’s proxy Houthis’ attacks on US Navy combat ships and on commercial freight shipping in the Red Sea, Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden, through his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, said that

The United States is going to take “appropriate action[.]”

Sure we will. Biden will have the Navy go drop a bomb, or two, on or toss a couple of missiles at a couple of unimportant Houthi buildings in the Yemeni desert, just like he did in the Syrian desert in pseudo-response to Iran’s Syria proxies’ dozens of attacks on US facilities there.

And the timing of this “appropriate action?” Sullivan, again saying the words Biden gave him to say:

We are going to take appropriate action in consultation with others, and we will do so at a time and place of our choosing.

Biden’s America is incapable of acting on its own, but only with the permission of others. Beyond that, his timing is nothing more than an empty “Whenever, man.”

I’ve Written It Before

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House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R, KY) says there’ll be no special treatment of Hunter Biden; if he ignores the Committee’s subpoena, Comer will take him to court to force his appearance.

“We’re going to treat this investigation like every congressional investigation in recent memory has been treated: you come in for a deposition, then you do the public hearing. All of our depositions are transparent. We released the transcripts. … He is the key witness to all of the Biden crimes. So the subpoena called for him to show up in this office on December 13 for a deposition. I expect to see Hunter Biden in this office for a deposition.”
Asked if he was prepared to go to court if the first son does not show up, Comer answered. “Absolutely.”

And I’ll write it again. Comer shouldn’t waste time on going to court to enforce the Committee subpoena of Son Biden. The Father Biden/Garland DoJ won’t push the matter at all. Instead, per Jurney v MacCracken, Comer should put the matter before the House for a contempt vote first thing in the morning of the 14th, and then the House Sergeant at Arms, by noon on the 14th, should be sent to arrest Biden and haul him before the Committee for a closed-door deposition on the 15th.

There’s no need for any more stalling by either Biden.

Healthcare Systems On Edge

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They’re on edge from a plethora of cyber attacks against them.

According to the Institute for Security and Technology, about 300 hospitals have suffered ransomware attacks this year alone. Cyber experts say hackers typically see health care organizations as a prime target because hospitals are likely to pay ransom to keep critical health services up and running.

Two problems are buried in that simple characterization. One is the continued vulnerability of the hospital systems’ IT systems. Why does this vulnerability continue to exist? Charlie Regan, Nerds On Site CEO:

Cyber criminals trying to get into any network or system are incredibly well-funded and incredibly well-orchestrated, and they have a never-ending source of more creative and effective tools to breach systems[.]

Yes, countering, much less preempting, such attacks is hard. But “hard” means “possible,” and the hospital system IT managers don’t appear to be making much effort to get on top of their companies’ vulnerability—those 300 attacks in just the last several months seem to demonstrate this.

But the larger problem in that characterization is that hospitals are likely to pay ransom. Paying the ransom is nothing other than paying the hackers wages for their labor, aiding and abetting the hackers’ crimes, and increasing the vulnerability of others to hackers’ crimes by guaranteeing that their crimes don’t just pay; they’re lucrative.

Given that, I’m having a hard time summoning any sympathy for the hospital systems. They need to start taking their cyber vulnerabilities seriously.