Category Archives: politics

Satellites, Espionage, and Malware

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It seems that the People’s Republic of China is using our geosynchronous satellites for its own ends, both economic and national security.  It seems the NLMSM is only just catching up to that long-standing fact.

That’s not cool (each of those things), but the former also presents some opportunities (the latter only serves for hand-wringing and click-bait).

One is to upload software to block communications from PRC sources—the data packets have the data necessary for the discrimination embedded within them. Of course, it’s a routine hack to alter those packet source data or to alt-route the messaging so as to disguise the data’s origin.  But that slows down the data stream, and that, with the latency inherently involved in a communications pathway that involves such faraway nodes can destroy the usefulness of some time-sensitive data.

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Anybody Else

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Ex-Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton thinks President Donald Trump should have been—would have been—indicted on the basis of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were he not President.

I think there’s enough there that any other person who had engaged in those acts would certainly have been indicted[.]

On the other hand, given the case that then-FBI Director James Comey laid out regarding Clinton’s mishandling of classified documents via her private, uncontrolled, and unprotected email server; her forwarding classified material via her unsecured emails; and her destruction of 30,000 pieces of evidence emails, she should have been indicted.

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Monopolies

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The FCC thinks it has a problem with the pending T-Mobile-Sprint merger, worrying that such a thing would anti-competitive and lead to rising prices for consumers.  The WSJ‘s editorial board demurs from the FCC’s attitude.

But greater economies of scale in industries with high fixed costs can create efficiencies that benefit consumers. DOJ’s position should evolve as markets and technology have.

Indeed, and the FCC’s regulators presently are illustrating another problem with government intervention in the market, whether by Republican or Progressive-Democrat regulators. The FCC’s regulators’ worries are purely speculative, not realized fact.

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Computers and Telephones

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Call me Luddite.  A short time ago, Samsung decided to delay the rollout of its foldable cell phone for a month.  I won’t miss it.

My beef isn’t the growing pains associated with the device; all of those are just Samsung’s hurried and botched release before the thing was ready for prime time.  My beef is with the price and capability of the thing, stipulating that Samsung will solve those rollout problems.

Samsung’s Galaxy Fold will set you back two grand for a midget tablet’s display that’s part of a pocket calculator of limited calculational capability that also runs an app for making telephone calls.  Huawei is planning a fall rollout of a slightly larger and much more expensive foldable cell—theirs will run $2,600.

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Censorship

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The Wall Street Journal opined the other day on the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Flyers banning Kate Smith and her rendition of God Bless America from the opening of their home games.  The WSJ takes the position that this is overwrought concern for perfection in today’s persons, demanding even perfection of their past.  Smith was, as we all are, and the WSJ notes, a person of her time. The WSJ went on:

Smith’s fate suggests the dominant impulse of our era is in fact to censor—and that those rifling through the histories of people long dead for evidence to destroy their reputations are progressive Puritans, seeking to suppress or cover up anything they object to.

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Economic Performance

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…and one Progressive-Democrat’s tax proposal.  Although, the fact is that these effects aren’t unique to Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren (D, NM): the trend of effects are the outcomes of all the Progressive-Democratic Party’s proposals, differing only in detail.

Warren’s particular proposal is to tax business profits above $100 million at 7%.  Here are some outcomes of such a thing, according to the Tax Foundation, with the FoxBusiness cited.  A tax like this would

  • reduce incentives to invest, so GDP would shrink by ~1.9% over the long-term
  • reduce a firm’s capital by 3.3%
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The Mueller Investigation

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Not just the report itself, but his investigation, too, that was the subject of his report. What were the circumstances of the investigation’s start?  What triggered it?  Who leaked so many parts of it?

Now that Mueller’s report of his investigation has been released, and especially since it largely exonerated President Donald Trump, it’s necessary to see what led to the expenditure of two years of personnel resources and millions of dollars on an investigation of a President of the United States that accomplished so little—and in some cases so redundantly.

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Citizen’s Arrests

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New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has no understanding of duty or of law.  It seems that an armed group of citizen militia caught 200 illegal aliens in the act of illegally entering our nation near Sunland Park, NM, and they detained those illegal aliens until US Border Patrol agents—which those citizens called—could arrive and take charge.

In her response to this, Grisham said,

It should go without saying that regular citizens have no authority to arrest or detain anyone[.]

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An Outcome of Open Borders

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Two members of MS-13, having been deported, have been arrested trying to illegally reenter our nation.  These thugs were traveling separately and were caught in widely separated locations.

The fact that they were caught might be an argument that we don’t need walls at key areas of our border.  However, such an argument elides the fact that many others get through without being caught because we don’t have those walls, which would both seal off the particular areas and would funnel penetration attempts to other areas more limited and more easily patrolled.

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The Attorney General and Immigration Judges

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John Yoo, who was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, has reminded us of the authority of the AG vis-à-vis immigration judges.

He [the AG] has the power to overrule immigration judges. Immigration judges have been making mistakes….

Aside from the immigration judges’ error rate, it’s really quite clear that the AG can overrule them. Not only are immigration judges not Article III judges, they’re employees of the Department of Justice—they work for the AG. Beyond that, they’re not even judges; they’re Special Inquiry Officers.

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