Monthly Archives: January 2026

Time to Respond…

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…more forcefully and farther than what the People’s Republic of China has done.

China said it banned the export to Japan of goods with potential military uses, intensifying Beijing’s retaliation against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi over remarks she made about Taiwan.
The export ban takes effect immediately, China’s Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday.

It’s time for Japan, and the US in support of Japan, to answer the PRC’s escalation with a much sharper escalation of their, and our, own.

Japan—Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and the Diet—must state unequivocally that it will support the Republic of China in the event of a PRC invasion attempt. Japan also must make concrete moves toward developing its own nuclear weapons. The nation, given its geographic location, doesn’t need anything more esoteric than intermediate range missiles along with a small constellation of surveillance satellites. Japan also must begin taking overt defensive measures regarding its islands in the East China Sea.

Economically, Japan must begin serious and rapid disengagement of its business activities with and within the PRC.

The US must announce that we will support the RoC in the event of a PRC invasion attempt, and we must step up arms deliveries to both the RoC and to Japan. We need also to be much more forceful in defending the international waters and sea lanes of commerce in the South China Sea as well as moving to restrict the PLAN’s and PLAAF’s movements in that region.

The US must also get serious about severing our economic ties with the PRC.

There must be no petty tit-for-tat responses, and there must be no non-response. The question is whether Japan’s government men and women, and ours, have the stomach for facing down the men and women of the PRC government.

Cutting off doing business with and within the PRC will be expensive and disruptive, but it won’t be nearly as much so as acceding to PRC demands—which will only increase were Japan or us to back down repeatedly and further.

A Simpler Solution

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As Conservatives grow increasingly concerned over activist Federal district judges overstep their authorities, even seemingly overruling Supreme Court decisions regarding nation-wide injunctions, many are proposing corrective action.

One proposed solution lies within the judiciary itself. Under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act, the Judicial Conference of the United States may refer a judge to Congress if it determines that the judge’s conduct could warrant impeachment.

And

Another avenue for reform lies with Congress, which has clear constitutional authority to define the jurisdiction and powers of lower federal courts. Lawmakers could, for example, require cases with national implications to be heard by three-judge panels, or mandate expedited Supreme Court review of injunctions blocking federal laws or regulations.

I’m loathe to see JCUS get more active in referring to Congress for impeachment. That’s a slippery slope. What happens via an (over)active JCUS when the Progressives get activist Justices appointed to the Court?

The Supreme Court’s involvement here should begin as follows. If a district judge oversteps his bounds in the form of issuing a ruling not in conformance with a Supreme Court ruling a second time, the Court in overruling that judge’s second overstep should also rule that all future opinions which that judge issues are automatically stayed pending appellate court review.

The solution to judge-shopping is more straightforward than many think, as is the business of district judge issued national injunctions, if they might be politically difficult. Congress needs to pass and the President sign (or have his veto overridden) a law with two paragraphs. One paragraph would clarify and state explicitly that all cases, including civil, must be brought in the Federal district in which the first instance of the beef arose. If the other side of the litigation can demonstrate that the beef to which the plaintiff’s case refers actually had its first instance arise in a different district, then the plaintiff’s case would be dismissed.

The other paragraph would explicitly limit a district judge’s reach to the limits of his district boundary. District judges would be explicitly barred from issuing nationwide injunctions or any other injunction reaching beyond his district boundary. There’s no need for a three-judge panel here, nor is there any need for “expedited” review.

State Problem, not Federal

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Amid the moves related to canceling, or not, $160 million in Federal funding if California misses its 5 January deadline for canceling some 17,000 Commercial Driver Licenses illegally issued to illegal aliens, comes this Federal lawsuit objection by the Asian Law Caucus and the Sikh Coalition, along with the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP:

the cancellations would “result in mass work stoppages” immediately upon the deadline.

Say that’s true, and it likely is. Their beef is with California’s State government for its decision to act illegally and so broadly so, not with the Federal government for enforcing the law. Suing the Feds to stop their enforcement of law should be a nonstarter.

A Thought on “Firsts”

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Too many pundits, too many others, insist on commenting loudly (or quietly) on the first black man to do this, the first woman to do that, the first homosexual person to do the other. The loud current example is New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He is, according to these Wonders, the first Muslim, the first Asian American, the youngest to become the city’s mayor.

So what? What he is is an American citizen. All the rest is decidedly irrelevant to the point of meaninglessness.

Unfortunately, as long as pundits, and too many others, insist on pointing that someone is the first this to achieve something or the first that to achieve something else, as long as those pundits, et al., insist on these manufactured firsts, they continue to keep us divided from each other by claiming special accolades for their approved groups.

That divisive decision very closely approaches bigotry. At the very least, it’s insulting to those groups as the pundits insist that the groups cannot succeed on their own; they must be singled out for their immutable characteristics rather than applauded or decried for the material things they’ve done or not done.

It Isn’t Just That

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Roger Severino, writing for the Heritage Foundation in a letter to The Wall Street Journal‘s New Year Day Letters section, demurred from the WSJ house editorial regarding the putative blowup at/of Heritage. He claimed a mistake[ of] a change in tactics for a change in principles.

The disagreement between the two centers on a Tucker Carlson podcast interview of Nick Fuentes and the Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ defense of Carlson and of the interview in the ensuing hooraw over the interview and Fuentes.

Kevin Roberts, the head of the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank, defended Carlson after the episode, saying Carlson “remains and, as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”

It’s entirely appropriate—consistent, even, with Conservative thought on free speech—to defend the interview in its existence and to defend Carlson for doing the interview. However, for an allegedly conservative organization to defend the existence of an interview between a conspiracy theory mongerer and a racist bigot without comment is badly wrong.

Such an interview should be accompanied, with or in its immediate aftermath, commentary on the immorality of the bigotry and on the foolishness of conspiracy mongering. That the Heritage Foundation chose to defend the interview and interviewer without comment belies Severino’s pious claims of continued Conservatism.