Hong Kong Protests

Posted on 5 July 2019 by eehines

And the People’s Republic of China threatens. Hong Kong citizens have been protesting a PRC-endorsed law proposal that would allow Hong Kongese and others resident in or visiting Hong Kong to be extradited to the mainland for trial in the PRC’s government-run court system.

[The PRC’s] government signaled its fraying patience with protesters in Hong Kong after they stormed the city’s legislature, calling the violent turn a direct challenge to Beijing’s authority and suggesting it would have to be answered.
Public statements from Beijing marked a shift in Chinese leaders’ attitude toward the crisis in the semiautonomous territory, indicating they may be forced to step in….

This is a preview of Hong Kong Protests. Read the full post (348 words, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)

“The Trump Doctrine”

Posted on 3 July 2019 by eehines

That’s the title of The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial last Sunday about President Donald Trump’s general foreign policy. They’ve misunderstood it, though, beginning with their subheadline:

With this President, the diplomacy is always personal.

Well, of course it is. Just as all politics are local, so all diplomacy is personal: the principals must know who each other are and the degree to which they can trust each other.

And this:

President Trump believes in personal diplomacy and showmanship above all in foreign policy….

This is a preview of “The Trump Doctrine”. Read the full post (241 words, estimated 58 secs reading time)

Nike Fail

Posted on 3 July 2019 by eehines

Nike has signified its agreement with Colin Kaepernick‘s assessment that Nike’s planned Betsy Ross-flagged shoe, intended to be released for Independence Day celebrations, was offensive to some by canceling the release. Kaepernick’s claim was that

he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery

Never mind that, were it not for those evil slavers who founded our nation and fought for our independence, we’d still be dealing in slavery and indentured servitude—and guess what would be the lot of current immigrants, legal and illegal.

This is a preview of Nike Fail. Read the full post (435 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Censorship

Posted on 27 June 2019 by eehines

James O’Keefe’s Veritas did some undercover work, produced a video of that work, and ran it on YouTube. However, the exposé was of…Alphabet’s Google (which in turn owns YouTube), so YouTube took it down—Alphabet’s censors couldn’t stand the criticism.

The video seems to be back up a few hours later as I write this on the late afternoon of Tuesday.

However.

Alphabet’s attempt to censor, regardless of its (temporary?) failure, is wholly unacceptable, and it demonstrates Alphabet’s (as the owner of Google and YouTube) dishonesty and cowardice.

This is a preview of Censorship. Read the full post (141 words, estimated 34 secs reading time)

A Bit about Hate

Posted on 26 June 2019 by eehines

Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Cory Booker (D, NJ) has accused President Donald Trump of being hateful and running a campaign based on hatred. He warned his fellow Progressive-Democrat candidates not to run on hatred, but on love.

Booker is right about some of that. Progressive-Democrats and Republicans (and Greens, Libertarians, etc) are unlikely to win much of anything campaigning on hate.

Yet it’s Senator Spartacus who, along with the rest of his Party, preach the divisiveness and hatred of Party’s racist and sexist identity politics.

This is a preview of A Bit about Hate. Read the full post (227 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

Trump and the New York Times

Posted on 26 June 2019 by eehines

In one of a series of Letters to the Editor in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal, one letter writer decried both President Donald Trump’s and the NYT‘s words. It’s a false comparison, though. The letter writer wrote in the Trump part of his comparison

President Trump’s use of the word “treason” to characterize the Times, and his attempts to misuse government authority to retaliate against journalists must end, full stop.

This is a cynically misleading claim. Trump did not use the word “treason” to characterize the NYT; he used the phrase “virtual treason” to characterize the NYT‘s behavior.

This is a preview of Trump and the New York Times. Read the full post (236 words, estimated 57 secs reading time)

Health Care for All

Posted on 25 June 2019 by eehines

In Great Britain, Justice Nathalie Lieven of the Court of Protection (an ironically named court, as you’ll see in a bit) has ordered a woman’s pregnancy be terminated by abortion in the mother’s 22^nd week. The woman has the mental capacity of a grade schooler, and so Lieven has ordered the abortion ostensibly for the mother’s own sake.

Never mind that neither the woman nor the woman’s mother want the abortion, and the woman’s mother has said she would care for the baby—her granddaughter—as well as her daughter (for whom she already cares). Lieven insisted

This is a preview of Health Care for All. Read the full post (650 words, estimated 2:36 mins reading time)

Another Illustration

Posted on 24 June 2019 by eehines

I’m not one to defend Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden, but some things are far worse. When Biden spoke earlier of working with segregationists as a way to get things done, he wasn’t bragging about hobnobbing with racists, he was speaking of being able to work even with folks with whom he fundamentally disagreed in order to get things done.

In response, we see Senators and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidates Kamala Harris (D, CA) and Cory Booker (D, NJ) cynically distorting his meaning in order to manufacture a race beef. This is nothing but vote pandering, and it accomplishes nothing but demonstrate their own stinking racism.

This is a preview of Another Illustration. Read the full post (150 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

In Which the Court Gets One Right

Posted on 23 June 2019 by eehines

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Bladensburg Peace Cross is not an unconstitutional favoring by government of a particular religion, reversing the 4^th Circuit. Only Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

This is the privately done monument that was

built in 1925 and paid for by local families, businesses, and the American Legion to honor 49 World War I veterans from Prince George’s County [in Maryland]. But the 40-foot cross sits on a now-busy highway median owned since 1961 by a state commission that pays for its maintenance and upkeep.

This is a preview of In Which the Court Gets One Right. Read the full post (473 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

The VA Fails Again

Posted on 22 June 2019 by eehines

Now we learn that the Veterans Administration owes our disabled veterans a ton of money for something other than their health: some 53,000 of them have been charged home loan fees that they didn’t have to pay, to the tune of $189 million in aggregate. Those 53,000 are over half of our veterans who were allowed the fee waiver. VA auditors have discovered that, for 2012 through 2017

[V]eterans were charged the fees under the VA’s Home Loan Guaranty Program and now may be entitled to refunds ranging from $5,000 to $20,000….

This is a preview of The VA Fails Again. Read the full post (280 words, estimated 1:07 mins reading time)

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