Another Refusal to Engage

Posted on 26 June 2017 by eehines

…rather, another decision by the Progressive-Democrats in Congress to turn their backs and obstruct. In follow-up to the March meeting between the Congressional Black Caucus and President Donald Trump, Trump invited the CBC to another meeting. The CBC refused.

CBC Chairman Congressman Cedric Richmond (D, LA) wrote in a letter to Trump that proposals in the president’s budget would “not only devastate the communities that we represent, but also many of the communities that supported your candidacy.”

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Medicaid-Receiving Companies Object to the Senate Bill

Posted on 26 June 2017 by eehines

The Senate is proposing an overhaul of Obamacare and an improvement to the health coverage providing industry, and one of those improvements is a rollback of the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid and an eventual capping of Federal funds transfers to the States’ Medicaid programs. There are objections to this.

The primary objections are from insurers and hospitals, et al., who get a significant fraction of their income from the guarantees of Medicaid payments; they don’t want to have to compete in the open market. They prefer the supposed safety of that guaranteed income, paltry though it is, especially compared to the income available from a free market, and they don’t care what that “safety” costs those who must pay for it.

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Vandalism

Posted on 25 June 2017 by eehines

Terrorist vandalism.

Islamic State militants bombed the historic Nouri Grand Mosque in Mosul late Wednesday, Iraq’s military said, destroying the site where Islamic State’s leader first announced the creation of a self-declared caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria.

They did it purely out of petty, venal spite. Blowing up the place served no useful purpose, not even in the twisted minds of these Daesh barbarians.

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More Hateful Violence-Inciting Rhetoric from the Left

Posted on 24 June 2017 by eehines

They just can’t let go, even after they’ve been shown, graphically, what their incitement to violence achieves.

“My advice would just be to Republicans who do cozy up to him—it’s like hugging a suicide bomber,” [MSNBC Political analyst Elise Jordan] said. “He blows you up in the process with him.”

Her problem with reality continued, as she insisted that Trump “wasted the country’s collective time speculating over the tapes’ existence.” Never mind that the only ones wasting time in the speculation was the NLMSM: it was their editorial decision to obsess over an obvious trolling move. No one made them. And no one outside the “press” room cared.

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Obstructionism

Posted on 23 June 2017 by eehines

…for the sake of obstructionism. And now the Progressive-Democrats in the Senate are getting blatant about it. They don’t want to help reform the health care coverage disaster of the last eight years, so to block Republican and Conservative efforts at reform, these Progressive-Democrats have decided to block everything in the Senate. Here’s Senator Chris Murphy (D, CT) o the overall attitude:

What more could we do—hold Republican Senators by the arms to stop them from getting to the chamber? I think we’ll use every tool at our disposal.

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More on Foolish

Posted on 23 June 2017 by eehines

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said Tuesday that the U.S. central bank can wait until the end of the year before making the decision to raise rates again, while adding it could start reducing the size of its balance sheet before that.

Indeed. We could wait a decade, too. Both delays are about equally foolish.

Increasing interest rates on debt, whether market rates of Federal Reserve benchmark rates, are inherently inflationary. Thus: the Fed needs to set its rates to levels consistent with target inflation, and then sit down, and be quiet.

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Just Whose Side Are They On?

Posted on 22 June 2017 by eehines

The New York City Council is at it this time.

A new bill would require the New York Police Department to disclose and describe all “surveillance technology,” which it defines as “equipment, software, or system capable of, or used or designed for, collecting, retaining, processing, or sharing audio, video, location, thermal, biometric, or similar information.” The cops would have to post this information online annually and respond to public comments.

Naturally, the ACLU thinks this is a good idea, too.

Yeah. It is a good idea to tell criminals and terrorists just how they’re being identified and might be preempted. Sure.

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The Mueller Investigation

Posted on 22 June 2017 by eehines

Is Robert Mueller running a legitimate investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign or officials in it and Russia?

Robert Mueller hasn’t decided whether to actually investigate Trump: Report

Special counsel is investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, officials say

Mueller Seeks to Talk to Intelligence Officials, Hinting at Inquiry of Trump

Special counsel is investigating Jared Kushner’s business dealings

It isn’t possible for the Mueller investigation to be legitimate with all of these leaks about his investigation and its status and findings that he’s permitting to occur. Or that, Comey-esque, he’s doing himself.

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The Supreme Court is Considering the Limits of Partisan Gerrymandering

Posted on 21 June 2017 by eehines

The case stems from a Wisconsin state districting case

where a three-judge lower court last year invalidated a redistricting plan enacted by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature in 2011.

That court insisted that, following the 2010 census, the Republican State legislature redrew its legislative districts to favor Republicans and disfavor Democrats.

Election results since then have shown the redistricting had its intended effect, with the GOP winning a larger majority in the state assembly, even as the statewide tally of votes was nearly even between Republicans and Democrats, the lower court said.

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The Nub of the Thing

Posted on 20 June 2017 by eehines

In a Deutsche Welle piece on the likelihood of Emmanuel Macron being able to reform French labor and pension law, is this statement by Julie Hamann, a political scientist with the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.

The French have high expectations of the state, for it to fulfill its protective function with regard to social welfare. As soon as reforms are announced that may lead to cuts in social services or labor market insecurity, this very quickly gives rise to very great and very emotional fears.

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