Author Archives: eehines

Trump and the Paris Climate Accord

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President-elect Donald Trump (R) intends to take us out of this Accord soon after he’s sworn in, and it’ll be the second time he’s done so, after the Progressive-Democrat Biden administration saddled us with it for the last four years.

Steven Koonin, of the Hoover Institution, has a number of suggestions for how Trump can sell the move to Europe as well as domestically, and they’re all good ideas. There’s one more step that’s necessary, though.

Trump should put the Accord to the Senate for an up or down ratification vote as a treaty agreement. It’s virtually certain the matter would fall short of the two-thirds vote required for ratification, and that failure would end any further effort to ensnare us in it through the continued back-and-forth of “we’re in by Executive Action/we’re out by Executive Action” uncertainties.

Time to Walk Away from the NCAA

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The NCAA president, Charlie Baker, has issued his ultimatum. When Senator Josh Hawley (R, MO), in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing over legalized sports gambling, asked Baker about the NCAA’s policy that transgender student athletes should be able to use the locker room, shower, and toilet facilities in accordance with their gender identity, Baker’s response was blunt and appalling [emphasis added]:

Everybody else should have an opportunity to use other facilities if they wish to do so[.]

No. Men do not belong in women’s facilities, nor should they be competing against women in women’s sports. Title IX provides for substantially equal facilities for male and female sports; it does not provide for substantially equal facilities for male and coed sports.

So much for the organization’s obligation to protect women.

It’s time for women athletes, and male athletes with any sense of morals, to answer Baker’s disgusting ultimatum and use other facilities. Those other facilities would be competition facilities that don’t have men horning in.

Walk away from the NCAA en masse and form their own amateur athletic association, use those other facilities for their competitions. It would be good if the NCAA member semi-pro athletic education institutions did the same, even led the way, but I’m not holding my breath on that.

Sulk on the Sidelines

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Congresswoman Victoria Spartz (R, IN) has decided to take her marbles and go home in a snit. Not literally, she’ll remain, formally, a Republican, but

she won’t sit on committees or caucus with the House Republican Conference for the time being and will instead focus on working with the new “Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency” caucus on cutting spending.

She says, in so many words,

I will stay as a registered Republican but will not sit on committees or participate in the caucus until I see that Republican leadership in Congress is governing[.]
I do not need to be involved in circuses.

She’s not far wrong about the circus aspect, especially with the ego-driven Chaos Caucus continuing its knee-jerk obstructionism. Quitting the game, though, instead of staying in it, doing her best to reduce, if not eliminate, the circus aspect, is the move of a coward.

Pushing the DOGE spending cuts—whatever they are; so far, all we have is news outlet claims—all by her august self is a move borne of self-important arrogance. Demanding things be done her way or she’ll go sulk in her room is not the definition of leadership governing; it’s just more personal aggrandizement.

She doesn’t want to be just one voice in the cacophony. However, with her ducking out, she’s left the serious caucus with one less voice for functional governance.

Spartz is betraying her constituents.

She’s also contributing to Progressive-Democratic Party continued control of the House, given the Republican Party’s miniscule majority, and the Chaos Caucus’ preference for that over compromise with their fellow Republicans. That’s another betrayals of her constituents.

Misaimed Suit

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Recall, in the late runup to the Presidential election last month, the Des Moines Register published a poll by the once-respected pollster Ann Selzer that had Progressive-Democrat Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by three percentage points, which represented a significant swing from a month prior poll that had Trump leading by a significant margin. Selzer’s early November poll was a definite outlier; all of the other polls of the time had Trump leading by a little.

Now President-elect Donald Trump (R) is thinking about suing the Register and Selzer for election interference in publishing that poll. This time, I side with the news outlet. The Register only published the poll. If there was election interference being attempted, it would have been by Selzer through her poll. Selzer is the only one who should be the target of any sort of election interference beef here.

Legalized Extortion

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Elon Musk says he’s been ordered/threatened/whathaveyou to “settle” an SEC beef, or else. The SEC’s capo, Gary Gensler, has told Musk he must agree within 48 hours to either accept a monetary payment or face charges on numerous counts.

This is the Federal government, which has no authority to do so, requiring a settlement be agreed. This is more than just an effort to stampede a defendant so an arm of government can avoid the embarrassment of taking a weak case to court and getting a public failure and a potful of opprobrium when it loses.

This is that arm of government demanding the defendant pay the vig or suffer damage to, if not destruction of, his business. Crime syndicate capi do that. It’s behavior that doesn’t belong in the government of a free people.

Gensler should face far sterner sanction than just loss of his job.