On-Line Sports Betting

That’s the venue, but the question is much larger.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) is moving to authorize mobile sports betting, by having his government conduct “competitive bidding” for government permission to host such.

State Senate Racing, Gaming, and Wagering Committee Chairman Joe Addabbo (D, Queens) said in an interview that

he was glad the Democratic governor had shifted away from his opposition to online betting but believed the state should enact a more expansive system.
“I am not a believer that one sportsbook provider, or operator, can handle the volume in New York[.]”

Both miss the larger problem. In a truly competitive process, private economy entrepreneurs would start their own mobile sports betting enterprises, and they would compete—on the basis of product quality and breadth of services—for the consumer’s dollar. They wouldn’t be forced to compete—on the basis of politics—for the government’s imprimatur.

This is another Progressive-Democrat-run government’s attempt to control businesses.

As Michael Corleone (almost) said, It’s not business. It’s strictly politics.

Whose Money is it, Again?

Xavier Becerra (D), Joe Biden’s nominee for Health and Human Services, has long had a firm dislike for charitable organizations that don’t spend according to his requirements.

Case in point from then-Congressman from California Becerra on charitable foundations:

…someone needs to do something, especially when you’re using the taxpayers of America’s money to do your philanthropic work[.]

Notice that. Taxpayers’ money. Not working stiffs’ money. Not citizens’ money. Government’s money.

“We Cannot Erase the Last Four Years”

That’s Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D, MD) lament as he closed the Progressive-Democrats’ case on the floor of the House during Wednesday’s impeachment “debate.”

We cannot erase the last four years.

Though the Progressive-Democrats tried every day of those four years. They and their Obama Executive Branch bureaucrats spied on the Trump campaign and trumped up charges against General Michael Flynn, false charges it took all this time to clear.

They and their Democratic National Committee commissioned a salacious and false dossier in an effort to besmirch a President and to serve as the foundation of an investigation that culminated in finding that President Donald Trump had done nothing wrong.

They and their FBI agent-assistants lied to courts in order to get subpoenas and warrants to “investigate” Trump’s team.

They ran a sham impeachment.

They obstructed financial aid to Americans fiscally harmed by government shutdowns ostensibly due to the Wuhan Virus situation—done as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) admitted after the election was done solely for the purpose of interfering with Trump’s reelection.

Here’s what Hoyer and his Progressive-Democrats want to erase.

A major tax rate reduction for American businesses and a major income tax rate reduction for Americans. This kept his campaign promise.

Unemployment endured by blacks, Hispanics, women reduced to historic lows. This kept his campaign promise.

Income inequality reduced to multi-decade lows—by previously unemployed minority citizens actually getting jobs while the rich got no better off. This kept his campaign promise.

Historic support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities by increasing Federal funding support for those schools and making that support multi-year. This kept his campaign promise.

An improved trade deal with Mexico and Canada to replace NAFTA. This kept his campaign promise.

Working toward improving and strengthening NATO by getting the European NATO nations to increase their financial and equipment commitments to NATO—commitments that those nations had voluntarily committed years ago but welched on subsequently. This kept his campaign promise.

Bringing American soldiers home from Iraq and Afghanistan—for good or ill, but this kept his campaign promise.

Overtly and concretely facing the People’s Republic of China over that nation’s trade, technology, intellectual property depredations. This kept his campaign promise.

Overtly and concretely facing the People’s Republic of China over that nation’s seizure of the South China Sea and the islands and resources therein, and its attempts to seize the East China Sea. This kept his campaign promise.

Strengthened our ties with the Republic of China. This kept his campaign promise.

Strengthened our ties with Japan. This kept his campaign promise.

Improved our defense arrangement with the Republic of Korea. This kept his campaign promise.

Attempted serious diplomacy with northern Korea vis-à-vis that nation’s nuclear weapons program. This kept his campaign promise.

Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, an accord that our compliance with would seriously damage our economy while strengthening, in relative terms, the PRC’s and so increasing its leverage over our Asian allies and over us. This kept his campaign promise.

Withdrawing from the JCPOA, which authorized Iran to freely develop nuclear weapons as soon as it expired. This kept his campaign promise.

Strengthening our physical border with Mexico, thereby strongly reducing illegal entry into our nation by illegal aliens. This kept his campaign promise.

Reducing Federal regulations that interfere with American business development and growth. This kept his campaign promise.

Reducing regulatory barriers to our hydrocarbon-based energy industry, thereby making us a net energy exporter and virtually eliminating our dependence on foreign energy. This kept his campaign promise.

I’m sure there are more; this short list is just the high points.

This is the economic, social, and political strengthening of the last four years that Hoyer and his Progressive-Democrats want so desperately to erase.

Newspeak In America

…via the leftwing Forbes magazine. And it’s a disappointing position for the used-to-be Conservative Steve Forbes to take via his magazine.

Randall Lane, the editor of Forbes magazine, issued a warning to businesses this week that they should avoid hiring any press secretaries that served in the Trump White House, claiming that doing so will make their companies instantly untrustworthy and subject to heightened journalistic scrutiny.

Lane went on:

Let it be known to the business world: hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists…and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie.

And the newspeak of Forbes through his magazine and his editor:

This isn’t cancel culture[.]

American Energy

…independence today. Tomorrow, American energy dependence.

Bloomberg is reporting that the US didn’t import any oil at all from Saudi Arabia last week, the first time in 35 years. That’s part of a longer term trend in declining Saudi oil imports over the last six years, especially. See the graph just below.

This trend is a result of the US technology advance of fracking which both drove down the cost of getting the oil (and natural gas) out of the ground and drastically increasing our own oil and gas production—virtually eliminating our dependence on foreign oil and gas and making us net exporters of both.

However.

Watch for American energy independence to (re)degrade into energy dependence on foreign nations under the Biden administration.

Watch that dependence made doubly vulnerable as the Biden administration reduces funding for our national defense, including particularly our Navy, so that we will be less able to defend the shipping lanes carrying that foreign energy to us.

The People’s Republic of China, beginning under the Obama régime, already is in a position to shut off the shipping lanes carrying trillions of dollars of goods, including crude, to us through the South China Sea, and they’re building/acquiring naval bases for the PLA on the west coast of Africa and creating “economic” ties with island nations on the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea, and on the north coast of South America. And Biden’s softness toward the PLC is well-known.