Monthly Archives: September 2024

Free Speech German Style

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A Gab user stands criminally accused of…free speech…in Germany. Gab, so far, is standing tall and refusing Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office demand that the social media outlet dox the user so s/he can be hauled before a German court to answer for his “crime.” The user, it seems, called the Leader of Alliance 90/The Greens, Ricarda Lang, fat.

This is from German Criminal Code, Section 186:

disseminat[ing] a fact about another person which is suited to degrading that person or negatively affecting public opinion about that person, unless this fact can be proved to be true [is a crime]….

Here is Lang, in all her bountifully curvaceous glory:

That’s fatter than fat, it seems to me, and her image provides ample proof of the Gab user’s characterization. But telling the truth, even when the truth is proved, seems to be illegal in Germany.

While we’re on the subject of free speech, here’s Section 188:

If…insult (section 185) is committed publicly, in a meeting or by disseminating content (section 11 (3)) against a person involved in the political life of the nation on account of the position that person holds in public life and if the offence is suited to making that person’s public activities substantially more difficult

Never mind that that’s the whole point of public insults against a political personage—especially if the insult turns out to be accurate and not merely contemptuous (which would be legal in any nation whose politicos are not terrified of their own constituents).

But wait—Section 192 the German attitude toward proof that Section 185 otherwise says would exonerate the person.

Proof of the truth of the asserted or disseminated fact does not preclude punishment in accordance with section 185 if the insult results from the form of the assertion or dissemination or the circumstances under which it was made.

Here’s my “form of the assertion or dissemination:” my echo of the Gab user’s characterization of Lang’s physique, repeated from above:

How far Germany has fallen.

This is the Progressive-Democratic Party

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Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wants Elon Musk arrested for…allowing free speech on his platform and for speaking freely himself. Reich actually said, with a straight face,

Musk’s free-speech rights under the first amendment don’t take precedence over the public interest.

That’s a Party leader saying that our American free speech rights, enshrined in our Constitution, are separate from the public interest.

Party is breathtakingly wrong on that. Free-speech rights are the public interest. Without freedom of speech, there is no public, only dependents of Government.

This is the Progressive-Democratic Party. Free speech is what Party says it is. Nothing else.

Misunderstanding

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It’s surprising that so many so-called journalists misunderstand, but it’s a widespread failure, and it includes too many economists, as well. For good or ill, there is a loophole in the 2018 tax law that’s providing windfalls for American companies.

The loophole is a mismatch of critical dates between that law’s Section 245A and Section 78. The former lets US companies bring home their foreign profits without paying US taxes, with an effective date of 1 January 2018; the latter was intended to prevent inappropriate tax breaks in the old international tax system, with an effective date of 31 December 2017. Those 24 hours are a loophole far beyond the size of a single day. Three companies, for instance, are claiming—and one has already won in court—tax refunds:

[Varian Medical Systems won its case for] $150 million in deductions. The electronics manufacturer Kyocera and the food distributor Sysco have similar court cases pending, each involving more than $100 million in deductions.

Others are putting together their own refund filings that, in their aggregate will be worth several tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars more.

The misunderstanding is not about the Congressional gridlock blocking reconciliation of those two dates, as the writer of the Wall Street Journal article went on about, even though she got it right in her lede.

That [loophole] is now allowing big companies to save tens or hundreds of millions of dollars that otherwise would have gone to the government.

The misunderstanding—an understanding which goes to the core of our tax system and its and its constitutionally mandated purpose—is this:

The Varian case highlights how gridlock in Congress can cost the public….

No. Leaving money in the hands of our private economy, or returning money to those hands, is not a cost to the public—we American citizens and our enterprises are that public—but a benefit to the public, to us. Leaving the money or refunding it does reduce the amount of money accruing to Government, but that also could be a benefit to the public by restricting the money available to government to misspend. That latter, though, puts the onus on us in the public to elect politicians who will honor that restriction by not borrowing to spend more than government takes in and by not raising taxes to match excess spending.

Then there’s this:

A recent ruling by the Supreme Court will put more emphasis on the literal text of laws….

Literal text of the laws: the text of a law is what Congress intended the law to say, else Congress would have passed a different law saying something different.

And that’s as it should be, since the American system of governance restricts legislation to Congress and judicial action to the limits of those laws’ text. Judge Emin Toro, writing in his ruling on the Varian case, was quite clear on this:

Congress “spoke clearly” when it selected the mismatched effective dates. “Appeals to policy and Congress’s overarching purpose cannot overcome these choices[.]”

Activist judges—and that’s the only kind that presumes to legislate from the bench, that presumes to Know Better than the rest of us what a law should be—are broadly held as Truth Sayers by the Left and its Progressive-Democratic Party. These unelected representatives judges writing law rather than ruling within it are the bane of American liberty.

Some Labor Day Questions

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First published in 2015, I’ve updated it for today.  In an ideal world, I’ll be able to update it again next year, with a yet more optimistic tone.

The Wall Street Journal asked some questions on Labor Day 2012, and supplied some answers.  Here are some of those questions and answers, which remain as valid this Labor Day.

  • Q: How are America’s workers doing? Not good. Over the past decade, over the ups and downs of the economy, taking inflation into account, the compensation of the typical worker — wages and benefits—basically haven’t risen at all. … The Labor Department recently said that 6.1 million workers in 2009-2011 have lost jobs that they’d had for at least three years. Of those, 45% hadn’t found work as of January 2012. … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that unemployment is still two percentage points higher than normal….
  • Q: Things ARE getting better, though. The US economy is creating jobs, right? Back in December 2007 when the recession began, there were about two jobless workers for every job opening.  When the economy touched bottom in mid-2009, there were more than six unemployed for every job.  At last count, the BLS says there were 3.4 jobless for every opening.
  • Q: How much of this elevated unemployment is because the unemployed just don’t have the skills that employers are looking for right now?  …the bulk of the evidence is a lot of the unemployment really is the old-fashioned kind: the kind that would go away if the economy was growing at a stronger pace. Mr. Bernanke said as much at the [2012] Jackson Hole conference….

In 2019, the jobs situation was drastically improved.  The overall unemployment rate was at an historic low, and there were more job openings than there were folks to fill them.  The black unemployment rate was at a record low.  The Hispanic unemployment rate was at a near record low.  The women unemployment rate was at a near record low.  Wages, both real and nominal, were growing.

The Wuhan Virus Situation severely damaged that, but by late 2020, our economy was in rapid recovery, GDP was up sharply, folks were getting jobs again, and inflation still was at an historic low despite that heating up economy.

We now have high, if slowing inflation, and the necessities of life: food, shelter, energy for heating/cooling our shelter, and fuel for getting to work remain priced well above what they were those nearly four years ago, with real wages lower than they were then, even if that gap is slowly closing.

Labor Day is here, and this time around, it represents the traditional beginning of the Presidential election campaign season. The question before us now is which of the two administrations currently on offer offers the better plan for getting us out of this lingering doldrum—the one that wants reduced regulation and smaller government or the one that sees government as the answer to our problems and wants to grow it commensurately.

Happy Labor Day.

“Honest Mistake”

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That’s the claim Maryland’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Wes Moore is making about his false claim of have earned a Bronze Star which he put on his application for a White House fellowship 18 years ago. At 27 years old, when he made his claim, Moore was old enough to know better. Somewhat older when he was discharged, he was still old enough to know better.

Moore’s claimed sequence of events:

While serving overseas with the Army, I was encouraged to fill out an application for the White House Fellowship by my deputy brigade commander. In fact, he helped me edit it before I sent it in.
At the time, he had recommended me for the Bronze Star. He told me to include the Bronze Star award on my application after confirming with two other senior-level officers that they had also signed off on the commendation.

So far, no problem. He was acting on his commander’s suggestion based on the award being recommended.

However.

Moore said he was “disappointed to learn” that he hadn’t received the Bronze Star towards the end of his deployment.
“But I was ready to begin the next phase of my life, because the reward for service is never an award—it’s the opportunity to give back to your country. When I returned home, I was focused on helping my fellow veterans, a mission I continue to advance as governor,” he said.
“Still, I sincerely wish I had gone back to correct the note on my application. It was an honest mistake, and I regret not making that correction….”

That last is his lie, and it’s indicative of his stolen valor. He knew by the end of his deployment—his own words—that the recommendation for his being awarded the Bronze Star had been turned down. He knew, further, that medal recommendations often are turned down. His pious-sounding words of serving others being its own reward are given the lie by those words of his immediately following.

That level of military decoration is not something any service member forgets about. He chose to not bother to correct his fellowship application after he knew the recommendation for his Bronze Star had been turned down.

Moore knew better, and he knows better. It would have been easy enough to check at the end of his deployment—which he hadn’t needed to do; he already knew: his own words, again. At the very least, his DD214, which every serviceman is issued upon discharge or retirement, lists all the awards and decorations—medals—that the service member received. He chose not to correct his “error” until it became public.

Alongside Minnesota’s Progressive-Democrat Governor and Progressive-Democratic Party Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz’ stolen valor regarding his own lied-about retirement rank, this stolen valor behavior, this insult to our nation’s military personnel, both current and discharged/retired and those who’ve actually been in combat, been wounded or maimed, been killed defending our nation, is what Party does.