Tag Archives: politics

What He Said

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The subheadline on Columbia Law’s School Maurice & Hilda Friedman Professor of Law Philip Hamburger’s Tuesday Wall Street Journal op-ed is spot on.

The First Amendment protects the right to hear alternative views, not merely to express them.

Hamburger went on:

People can’t develop their views with any sophistication unless they can consider opinions that enlarge, refine, moderate, or challenge their own. So, when government demands the suppression of some speech and chills even more, it reduces the diversity, value, and moderation of opinion—and thereby diminishes the opportunity for every individual to develop and express his own considered views. Censorship inhibits the output of critical voices, which lessens Americans’ intellectual input, which in turn limits their intellectual output. Reading and speaking are inextricably linked in conversation.

This is a preview of What He Said. Read the full post (306 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

Fundamentally Transforming America

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I’ve written elsewhere of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s goal, and of the destructive nature of that goal.

Here is the rank and file of the Progressive-Democratic Party, demonstrating how deep-seated is that desire to destroy our Republic:

  • nearly half of Democrats (47%) support censorship, and think speech should be legal “only under certain ­circumstances”
  • one-third of Democrats (34%) think Americans have “too much freedom”
  • 75% think government has a responsibility to censor “hateful” social media posts
  • a majority of Democrats (52%) approve of the government censoring social media posts “under the rubric of protecting national security”
This is a preview of Fundamentally Transforming America. Read the full post (190 words, estimated 46 secs reading time)

Bidenomics

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It’s terrific, or so claims our Progressive-Democratic Party President, Joe Biden. Here are some examples of how well it’s working.

  • He [Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics] estimates that the typical American household would need to use 42 weeks of income to buy a new car, as of August, up from 33 weeks three years ago.
  • New 30-year fixed-rate mortgages today carry rates around 7%, up from 3% two years ago.
  • The typical credit card carried a 20.7% interest rate in May, up from 14.6% in February 2022….
This is a preview of Bidenomics. Read the full post (211 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)

ByteDance and TikTok

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Recall that TikTok, a social medium heavily favored by our children, is wholly owned by ByteDance. Recall further, that ByteDance is domiciled inside the Peoples Republic of China. Finally, recall that the PRC’s 2017 national security law requires every PRC-domiciled company to collect and deliver to that nation’s intelligence community any information that community requests. A bonus memory: TikTok’s executive team has been at pains to insist that, in the United States, they operate independently of all of that.

Against that backdrop, there’s this:

This is a preview of ByteDance and TikTok. Read the full post (553 words, estimated 2:13 mins reading time)

Featherbedding

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It’s not just for railroads, or auto unions. It seems to have come to the Writers Guild of America. The WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers appear to have reached a tentative agreement, wanting only fleshing out the details and then a WGA rank and file vote.

The tentative agreement appears to include these items:

  • a minimum number of writers per television show
  • guaranteed employment for those writers from conception to postproduction
This is a preview of Featherbedding. Read the full post (229 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)

Student Debt and Savings

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The lede’s lead sentence leads into it.

Everybody knows that US households’ savings soared after the pandemic struck, as the combined effects of checks from the government and fewer opportunities to spend swelled wallets.

Increasing household savings is, in almost all cases, good since we Americans don’t keep a big enough cash cushion against unexpected exigencies, anyway. There was, though, one key area, one Critical Item, that did—and does—represent quite a large opportunity legitimately to spend: paying down the student debt held by one or more members of a household.

This is a preview of Student Debt and Savings. Read the full post (358 words, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

Lying or Hostage-Taking Threat?

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Our Progressive-Democratic Party President, Joe Biden, is at it again. On the possibility of a Federal government partial shutdown due to a lack of a budget—which Biden distorted as being a complete shutdown—he had this threat regarding our military:

Let’s be clear. If the government shuts down, that means members of Congress and members of the US military are going to have to continue to work and not get paid….

This, of course, is false, or should be. There is plenty of revenue coming in to the Federal government under existing tax law to continue paying the Federal debt, Medicare and Social Security outlays, DoD expenses and military salaries, and on and on.

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Temp Workers at Car Manufacturers

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The UAW objects to American car manufacturers having temp workers on the payroll.

The use of temporary factory workers at the Detroit car companies has long rankled the United Auto Workers union, which wants fewer of them and a faster path to full-time status.

Never mind that

Automakers say they need the flexibility that temp workers provide, especially as they manage a tricky and costly transition to electric vehicles and confront the ups and downs of factory production.

This is a preview of Temp Workers at Car Manufacturers. Read the full post (352 words, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)

Nice Company You Got There

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Shawn Fain, UAW union boss, is extending his threat to Ford, GM, and Stellantis, the three major American car companies against which he’s taken selective strike action, a selectivity he’s said he’s using to maximize current damage to the companies.

…what the union calls a “stand up strike,” in which specific locals are asked to go on strike at their facilities. The union has said that strategy will give it flexibility in escalating the strike incrementally up to a potential nationwide strike if negotiations do not deliver sufficient progress in its view, and will make it harder for the auto companies to predict its next move.

This is a preview of Nice Company You Got There. Read the full post (252 words, estimated 1:00 mins reading time)

Continuing His Father’s Virtue-Signaling

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Prince William is royally frustrated with the pace of “climate” solutions and wants them developed and executed faster.

For now, we’re quite keen on the scale…when we scale up [solutions], how can we have the biggest change? For me, that’s something I haven’t quite cracked yet, is “how do we scale faster?”
I’m impatient with all this. You guys provide the product…the inspiration, the solution, my role is to get you as big, as fast, and as scalable as possible…. We’ve still got some work to do on that.

This is a preview of Continuing His Father’s Virtue-Signaling. Read the full post (509 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)