Category Archives: culture

Progressive-Democrats and Free Speech

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The DoJ and several States are moving to protect free speech on college campuses, with three States moving to pass legislation explicitly for the purpose, and ten others with legislation already pending.

Liberals and their Progressive-Democrats object.

Many Democrats say the Constitution already protects free speech, and that states have no need to micromanage how colleges handle student demonstrations and speakers.

This is just cynical, though.  Or, 8th-grade Civics wasn’t a safe space for them, and they were triggered into not listening.  These Progressive-Democrats are ignoring the fact that the mere existence of our Constitution is no protection at all; it must be actively enforced.

And:

Many also object to the penalties some measures are calling for, such as fining or firing—in the case of professors and other college employees—those who are deemed to have deprived the free speech rights of a person or group.

No, we can’t hold Liberal professors or others favored by Progressive-Democrats accountable—those folks are special.

Welfare Reform: MIA

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Senate Republicans and Progressive-Democrats agreed in principle to a two-year budget deal that sets outer bounds on spending allocations that are yet to be debated and passed in the two Houses.  The deal increases defense spending by $165 billion over the next two years, and it increases domestic spending by $131 billion over those two years.

But at what price?

One price is the potential for a return to $1 trillion deficits.  To an extent, that’ll be reduced by a growing economy as the tax reform law begins to take effect.

The larger price, though, by far, is the lack movement on the big three budget failures: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid transfers.  These remain not on any track toward privatization, or with that last item, not on any track toward reducing to zero transfers.

In 2016, the Federal government spent almost $950 billion on Social Security payments and a bit over $590 billion on Medicare.  Federal Medicaid transfers to the States in 2016 ran some $325 billion.

Fixing those would be produce a large reduction in deficits to the point of budget surpluses, which could be used to run down our national debt.  And the fixing would produce a large return to the personal responsibility that has contributed so strongly to our nation’s greatness and prosperity.

A Hong Kong Trial

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Some of you may recall the umbrella protests in Hong Kong a few short years ago concerning the rapid erosion of freedoms there as the People’s Republic of China accelerated its walk away from its promise to Great Britain to respect Hong Kong liberties after the island city was surrendered to the PRC.

Joshua Wong, one of those protesters, sentenced to jail for participating and speaking his mind, is out of jail pending his appeal.  Hong Kong Commissioner Clement Leung had a Letter to the Editor of The Wall Street Journal earlier this week objecting to a WSJ piece decrying the whole sorry charade that is the current Hong Kong judiciary.

Surprise: I have my own response to Leung.

Joshua Wong was convicted because he was resisting the enforcement of a court injunction to reopen the roads in a blocked protest site.

No, Wong was convicted for continuing to exercise his free speech rights in the face of a court ruling that erroneously subverted those rights.

Mr Wong and others were also convicted and sentenced in another case, not for exercising their freedom of expression, but for their disorderly and intimidating behavior….

The use of the “disorderly and intimidating behavior” charge was simply a Communist Party of China-directed cynical euphemism for “speaking too freely.” The only ones who saw disorder or who were “intimidated” were those unused to being disobeyed in their diktats and others unused to the rollicking noise of democracy.

As an experienced Commissioner, Mr Leung should know better.

He’s Missed the Point

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John Downs, President and CEO of the National Confectioners Association, wrote a Wall Street Journal Letter to the Editor objecting to Maine Governor Paul LePage’s (R) effort to get junk food off the list of foods for which Maine’s food stamps can be used.

Downs supplied a lot of numbers indicating that everyone, food stamp recipient or other, eats junk food and touting the limits of sugar in the junk food consumed.  But he missed the point.

As long as folks are going to use OPM to buy their food (and for the most part, us OP are perfectly willing to have our funds used for a hand up for those having even an extended rough patch), us OP get to say how our M will be spent in such matters.  And the fact is, food stamps should be used to buy staples only.  Everything else is a luxury, and luxuries should be outside any welfare program.

Like anyone else, of course food stamp recipients want to enjoy some of luxury, including junk food.  In that case, they should get a job so they can afford to spend their own money on their luxuries.  I sympathize with those who can’t find a job (perhaps they’ve been priced out of one by minimum wage laws), but that doesn’t legitimize luxury in a welfare program.

Downs missed the point of the proposed restriction.  But he has a vested interested in missing it.

What Are They Trying to Hide?

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The House of Representatives has voted to release a 4-pg memo delineating various misbehaviors of the FBI during its “investigation” of Trump campaign behaviors during the 2016 election campaign.  The FBI publicly demurs.

…the FBI [has] “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

This is rich, coming from an FBI that had to be threatened with contempt of Congress before it would end its year-long stonewall and turn over material (some of which is summarized in the memo) that had been long subpoenaed.  As House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R, CA) said in response to this particular ludicrosity,

The FBI is intimately familiar with “material omissions” with respect to their presentations to both Congress and the courts….

Nunes added

they are welcome to make public, to the greatest extent possible, all the information they have on these abuses[.]

The FBI also is claiming concerns about giving up methods and sources with the memo’s exposure.  They conveniently forget that the memo has been vetted for that sort of thing by the Intelligence Committee and is being so vetted by the White House, where the memo now sits being checked by the National Security Advisor.  Both of these agencies are fully capable of such vetting, and no less so than the FBI.

Hence my question.

Update: The memo was released, and the evidence is damning.  We hear from the hysteria in the Progressive-Democrats and the NLMSM their desperation after they failed to block the memo’s release.  And this bit of emphasis and clarification from Nunes on FoxNews‘ Special Report Friday afternoon after the memo’s release (via Richard Fernandez and a commenter):

(excerpt) “Just step back for a moment,” Nunes explained. “This is not trying to go after some terrorist. This is about — they opened, the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016. That’s what happened.”

He continued: “And then they got a warrant on someone in the Trump campaign using opposition research paid for by the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign. That’s what this is about. And it’s wrong and it should never be done.” (end excerpt)

Why is that important?

The significance of the warrant against Carter Page, was made October 21st, 2016, under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. [Meaning the surveillance application was specifically stating, to the court, the U.S. individual was likely an actual agent of a foreign government, ie. “a spy.”] (by sundance, Conservative Tree House) And renewed every 90 day period three times.

Why is it significant?
(1) as explained, designating Carter Page as foreign agent (spy), intelligence committee can spy on ANYBODY in contact with Page, even after he’s no longer part of the Trump team;

(2) the FISA warrant continued well into the first year of Trump presidency. Let both points sink in for a bit.

The Obama administration manufactured an espionage beef against Page instead of getting an “ordinary” FISA warrant that would have limited the scope and duration of its own spying.  Keep in mind, too, that no evidence has been turned up to indicate Page really is, or was, a Russian spy.  He was approached, certainly.  Nearly any American with even the most minimal set of connections is going to be approached by an apparatus of the Russian government.  That’s who the Russians are.  The available evidence, though, indicates he either ignored the approach or rebuffed it.