Monthly Archives: August 2016

Ransom

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As part of the Obama administration’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran, the US paid a $400 million ransom for four Americans who were being held by Iran on trumped up charges.  Naturally, the administration denies the ransom aspect.  It also denies that the ransom was part of the weapons deal, insisting that the all-cash payment, in euros, Swiss francs, and other unnamed currencies (because doing this in $US would be a violation of Federal law—a felony) and flown to Tehran in a cargo plane from which all national markings had been removed was part of a separate arms deal settlement.  That the three things—the nuclear weapons deal, the cash payment, and the Americans’ release all happened together was just a coincidence.  Nothing to see here, move along.

There’s a reason the US—until this administration—doesn’t pay ransom: it puts targets on every American travelling overseas, especially in the present case those who are visiting family in Iran.  Some in government recognize this.  Senator Mark Kirk (R, IL):

Paying ransom to kidnappers puts Americans even more at risk.  While Americans were relieved by Iran’s overdue release of illegally imprisoned American hostages, the White House’s policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more American hostages.

That ransom was paid last January.  Since then, two other Americans who were not ransomed remain in Iranian prisons, and three more Americans have been “detained” by the Iranian government while visiting Iran.  Worse, Obama’s ransom payment appears to have endangered citizens of our friends and allies, too: four British, Canadian, and French citizens have been “detained” by the Iranians since Obama paid up.

Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said loudly and clearly, she intends not only to continue the Obama administration’s policies, she intends to take them even further.

Elections have consequences.

A Court Gets One Right

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In a sexual orientation case involving an adjunct professor who claimed she was denied “full time employment and promotions based on sexual orientation,” the 7th Circuit ruled unanimously that her employer can, indeed, do exactly that.  In particular, Title VII, under which the case was brought, does not apply to sexual discrimination in the workplace.

The reason the Court got this one right has little to do with discrimination—and everything to do with it—rather, it’s centered on what the law actually says, and what the judges said about what the law actually says.

…a paradoxical legal landscape in which a person can be married on Saturday and then fired on Monday for just that act. For although federal law now guarantees anyone the right to marry an ‐ other person of the same gender, Title VII, to the extent it does not reach sexual orientation discrimination, also allows employers to fire that employee for doing so.  …  Many citizens would be surprised to learn that under federal law any private employer can summon an employee into his office and state, “You are a hard‐working employee and have added much value to my company, but I am firing you because you are gay.” And the employee would have no recourse whatsoever—unless she happens to live in a state or locality with an anti‐discrimination statute that includes sexual orientation.

Because the law, Title VII as it’s written, doesn’t address that question.

There’s more [emphasis added]:

…the distinction between gender nonconformity claims and sexual orientation claims has created an odd state of affairs in the law in which Title VII protects gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, but frequently only to the extent that those plaintiffs meet society’s stereotypical norms about how gay men or lesbian women look or act…. By contrast, lesbian, gay or bisexual people who otherwise conform to gender stereotyped norms in dress and mannerisms mostly lose their claims for sex discrimination under Title VII, although why this should be true is not entirely clear.

Yet, this [emphasis added]:

[T]he paradox is not our concern. Our task is to interpret Title VII as drafted by Congress, and as we concluded in Ulane, Title VII prohibits discrimination only on the basis of gender.

Regardless of what we might think of the particular ruling—concerning a woman who was denied advancement on the basis of her sexual orientation (assuming, arguendo, that her claim was accurate)—or of other rulings involving actual firings over sexual orientation, this court got this ruling right.  The court is right because it applied the law as it was written, and not as it might have preferred it to have been written or as a government agency (EEOC had sided with the professor) wanted it to have been written.

The court also was right because it didn’t stop there.  The court went on to point out that while the law in question, as it was written, conflicted with other laws—one driving the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriages, for instance—the court was powerless to resolve the conflict.  Such a resolution is a political decision, not a judicial one; it’s for the people and their elected representatives to alter the law(s) in directions they see fit; no court can do that.

The court’s ruling can be read here.

Racism in Student Governments

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Here’s an example.

The vice president of the Student Government Association at the University of Houston was punished by the Student Senate for a Facebook post that read, “Forget #BlackLivesMatter; more like #AllLivesMatter.”

The “offending” Facebook post by SGA VP Rohini Sethi has since been deleted, but below is an image of it.LivesMatter

UofH’s response at the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement?

[A] 50-day suspension beginning August 1, mandatory attendance of a diversity workshop, mandatory attendance of three cultural events per month, a reflection letter, and a public presentation at the Student Government Association meeting on September 28[.]

If she doesn’t complete this Mao-ist reeducation camp requirement, the SGA will banish her from their organization.  And expose her to continued harassment for her effrontery.

It is rank racism that proclaims the perhaps lives matter, but especially some lives matter more than others.

“We Have Lost the Peace”

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Walter Russell Mead had some thoughts while ruminating on some remarks made by Pope Francis as the latter was enroute to Poland.  He quoted Francis:

 …the world is at war because it has lost the peace.

To be clear: Francis wasn’t talking about have misplaced the peace; he was referring to our having lost the struggle for peace—both the struggle that is peace vs war and the struggle for generating out of that peace freedom, prosperity, and stability.

Mead commented:

[W]e have lost the peace. It is an interesting counterpoint to the Democratic establishment’s celebration of itself and its wisdom last night [the third night of the Democratic Party Convention].

Although he’s more confident in Clinton than I am, a point is clear: a Party that hides its head away from the reality of the present situation is a Party that will be hard-pressed to deal with that reality in any productive way.

More of the Same

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…from the best damn change-maker [Bill Clinton has] met in my entire life.  Indeed,

Mrs Clinton has been clear. She wants to serve as Mr. Obama’s political and policy heir, as she and he now admit. This won’t mean “change” unless the Clintons have an unusual personal definition of that word, as they do for “classified material.” A de facto third Obama term will mean the status quo, only more of it.

Here’s what Obama has accomplished with his policies, and Clinton has made no bones about wanting to do even more of it.

The slowest recovery from a recession since WWII—a period that encompasses a dozen recessions, culminating in the Panic of 2008.

  • labor force participation rate is at a 40 year low
  • median real household income remains lower than it was before the Panic
  • unemployment rate, even accounting for that greatly depressed labor force participation rate, didn’t recover even nominally until 5-6 years after the official end of the Panic against a normal interval of 2-3 years after the end of a recession
  • the national debt has been doubled and is growing because
  • the budget deficit, exploded in the years immediately following the Panic and dropping for a time after that has begun growing again

Rapid retreat from the world

  • Russia now occupies a partitioned Georgia and Ukraine (yes, Russia had invaded Georgia prior to this administration’s accession, but Obama has accepted the resulting partition)
  • Russia has attacked with impunity the Baltic States and Poland with cyber war
  • Russia threatens nuclear war against any European nation that builds is military defenses beyond what Russia would permit with this administration’s silence on the matter
  • abrogation of commitments to Poland and Czech Republic to deploy missile defense systems on the demand of Russia. We have yet to see whether this administration will follow through on a new commitment to Romania
  • People’s Republic of China occupation of the South China Sea
  • PRC repudiation of the International Court’s ruling against the PRC regarding the South China Sea, answered with US…silence
  • conclusion of an agreement with Iran that not only permits it to develop nuclear weapons, codifies that “right”
  • weakening of our ties with Israel
  • weakening of our ties with Great Britain, including Obama’s economic threat that if Great Britain leaves the EU, they will be pushed to the back of the bus queue on any trade deals with us

Here’s how Clinton wants to extend the domestic same old-same old, acceding to the demands of Independent Socialist Senator Sanders (I—he walked away from the D as soon as that no longer was convenient—VT).  We can’t afford four more years of no change, especially from a change-maker who’s promising unchanged-making.

  • subsidies ages 0 to 5
  • spending allegedly earmarked for public works (read, her crony capitalists)
  • wage controls for higher federal minimum
  • a right to child care
  • free college; a Medicare-like public health insurance option and administrative prices for new drugs;

With all of this paid for by even higher taxes, including a nearly doubling of the top tax rate on long-term capital gains to 43.4% from 23.8%, which is about as anti-investment and job-killing as it’s possible to get.