The Party of…Something

Posted on 9 October 2018 by eehines

The editors of the Wall Street Journal warned us last Sunday to be heads up: the Progressive-Democrats are not going to let this Kavanaugh thing go, even now that the confirmation is done. Shamefully, neither are they going to let Dr Christine Blasey Ford go.

The Minority Leader made clear that Democrats are going to use accuser Christine Blasey Ford as a campaign prop from here to November and beyond.

Schumer, Feinstein, Hirono, Gillibrand, Durbin, Spartacus—all of these, and each of them, have abused Dr Ford nearly as badly as did her unknown assailant all those decades ago. So has nearly every member of the Progressive-Democrat Party up for reelection this cycle.

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The Dangers of Welfare

Posted on 9 October 2018 by eehines

These are illustrated by a Letter to the Editor in Friday’s Wall Street Journal. The letter-writer wrote of a pay raise his company gave its employees and a bit of Panic of 2008 history:

Despite high unemployment rates [during the Panic], we still struggled to find well-qualified employees. We were competing against the federal government’s repeatedly extended subsidy for unemployment programs. We interviewed dozens of people who flatly told us they were only interviewing to obtain another log entry to remain qualified for unemployment benefits, and that they didn’t need to work for us when they could get paid almost the same to not work at all—for 52 weeks or more.

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The Supreme Court

Posted on 8 October 2018 by eehines

As I write this (Saturday morning), Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh has not been confirmed; although, that seems more likely than I had thought Friday morning before the cloture vote. Nevertheless, here’s why we need another textualist Justice on the Court—from the words of another Supreme Court Justice.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said Friday she fears the high court may lack a justice going forward who would serve as a swing-vote on cases….

And

Kagan said at a conference for women at Princeton University that over the past three decades…there was a figure on the bench “who found the center or people couldn’t predict in that sort of way.”

This is a preview of The Supreme Court. Read the full post (384 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Doing Business with the PRC

Posted on 8 October 2018 by eehines

The People’s Republic of China is stepping up their corporate espionage.

Starting November 1, police officers will have the authority to physically inspect businesses and remotely access corporate networks to check for potential security loopholes, according to the regulations released Sunday by the Public Security Ministry. Police will also be authorized to copy information and inspect records that “may endanger national security, public safety, and social order,” the rules said.

And

The new regulations also reinforce requirements on censorship and surveillance laid out in the cybersecurity law.

And to steal company secrets and classified information, and to plant malware for future use.

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College?

Posted on 7 October 2018 by eehines

I’ve written before about whether college is for everyone.

Some empirical evidence appears in a Wall Street Journal piece about last week’s unemployment number.

Peerfit Inc is growing, adding 80 staffers to its original 20 in just the last year and increasing their wages 5%-10% in the same period. CEO Ed Buckley has noted the difficulty in finding “good people.” Then he added this kicker:

When we first started, everyone we were hiring had a four-year college degree. Now the skill set [of vocational hires] is sometimes even sharper than their counterparts coming out with a four-year college degree.

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Civility

Posted on 6 October 2018 by eehines

Congressman Andy Harris (R, MD) had an op-ed in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal in which he decried the quality of current discourse and its lack of basic norms of decency. He closed his piece with a bit of naïve hope:

We must return to civility. We need to be able to agree to disagree, and express our disagreements through the democratic process.

That would be nice. However, notice that it was persons of the Left attacking Conservatives and people of the center right whom he described. The Progressive-Democratic Party has become the party of character assassination and destruction. While they are not—yet—antifa dominated, the Party’s methods are those of the worst of the Left’s thugs.

This is a preview of Civility. Read the full post (185 words, estimated 44 secs reading time)

Austerity

Posted on 5 October 2018 by eehines

Continuing the theme that other parts of the world still exist, this thought on Brazil’s upcoming presidential election. In a Wall Street Journal piece about the Brazilian presidential candidates’—all 13 of them—big economic plans with no money to implement them, the item’s author offered this bit:

Mr. Bolsonaro has raised the most hopes in financial markets of tackling the endemic spending problem. …his top economic adviser, economist Paulo Guedes, has promised investors fiscal austerity….

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In Other Parts of the World….

Posted on 5 October 2018 by eehines

A man in Austria was shocked to be handed a bill from a debt collection agency for €10,365 ($12,000) after misplacing his hotel key….

After all,

the key was a skeleton key for the entire building, and now the owner is claiming all of the hotel’s intricate locks must be replaced.

So—a hotel is careless of its security setup, and that makes its customers responsible for any potential breach.

Hmm….

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Taxes and Caps

Posted on 4 October 2018 by eehines

Howard Gleckman, Senior Fellow at the Tax Policy Center, wants the $10,000 cap on the federal deduction for state and local taxes repealed. After all, he worries [emphasis added],

what will happen to state budgets if high-income residents resist tax increases that are now less subsidized by the federal revenue code[?]

Further, Gleckman is arguing,

restoring the old distortion “may indirectly benefit low- and moderate-income households” by propping up state spending.

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A Response

Posted on 4 October 2018 by eehines

Recall Senator Richard Blumenthal’s (D, CT) sly innuendo about Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh during last Thursday’s (has it been only a week?) Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to receive testimony from Dr Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh:

As a federal judge, you’re aware of the jury instruction falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus [false in one thing, false in everything], are you not? You’re aware of that jury instruction.

Where Blumenthal was being legally pedantic, Victor Davis Hanson has an idea of an entirely appropriate response by Judge Kavanaugh, a broader, literary one, from Horace:

This is a preview of A Response. Read the full post (148 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

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