Category Archives: culture

Wrong Solution

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New York City’s Socialist (officially Progressive-Democrat) Mayor Zohran Mamdani published an extensive list of residences which he claimed were secondary residences—pieds-à-terre—owned by the Evil Rich, together with his intention of taxing them heavily for their existence. It turns out his minions didn’t trouble themselves to proofread the list, and it contains massive errors.

In his magnanimity, Zohran’s administration granted a reprieve, of sorts.

Homeowners across New York City now have an extra month to prove their primary residency and avoid Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new pied-à-terre tax, an extension triggered by mass confusion over a publicly posted tax roll.

This is Leftist government being Leftist. It shouldn’t matter how much time a city resident has in which to prove the home in which he lives is his primary residence and not the part-time secondary abode that the city claims it to be. This is a reversal of our national tradition—and legal requirement—that it’s the government’s task to prove its charge is correct and not the accused’s task to prove it incorrect.

Mamdani’s administration should be required to prove—in court and city expense—that the home in question is, indeed, the pied-à-terre that the city clams it to be. There is no excuse for shifting that most basic requirement of government off onto the citizen. That’s the attitude of Ruler regarding his Subjects.

A Success from which to Learn

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This bit, regarding Ukraine’s battlefield success flowing from Ukraine’s achieving drone dominance in the barbarian’s invasion lays out the success in question:

Ukraine’s rapid adoption of drone technology in warfare, as well as its rapid manufacturing build-out to produce them, is a success that US military officials wish to learn from in order to boost America’s own production and prepare its troops for future conflict.

Some factors of that success obtain in Ukraine that don’t exist in the US. One, that overarches the rest, is Ukraine’s smaller size, relative to us.

Another is that Ukraine’s government has—with that nation’s existence on the line and so clarifying many minds at the top—far less bureaucracy in the way: no acquisition bureaucracy in contrast with our Pentagon’s acquisition satrap whose bureaucrats seem more interested in protecting their bureaucratic turf than they are in getting weapons for our military, no contracting bureaucracy in contrast with our Pentagon’s contracting satrap whose bureaucrats seem more interested in protecting their bureaucratic turf than they are in getting effective weapons contracts signed to produce weapons for our military, a design bureau (for lack of a better term) that produces, authorizes, and encourages input ranging from ideas to developed designs from soldiers at the combat front and the supply and logistics front, in contrast with our Pentagon’s design satrap whose bureaucrats seem more interested in protecting their bureaucratic turf while being, at the same time, entirely too malleable by large defense contractors who constantly evolve their designs in order to plus up their contracts and the income from them, than those bureaucrats are in getting quality designs for our weapons and then freezing those designs for actual production.

Then there’s the political aspect. Ukraine’s size isn’t conducive to balkanizing supply chains and production facilities in response to its politicians’ push to get those projects for their districts. American politicians are infamous for holding up, even killing, useful weapons projects if they can’t get some or all of a project’s production set up in their State or district.

These are obvious lessons, easily learned, but they won’t be easily implemented.

That’s the Point

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A couple of letter writers in Thursday’s WSJ are spot on.

One writes,

[The] vital principle of representation was brought into our Senate, which wasn’t simply a more select gathering than the House of Representatives, but also a gathering of the representatives of organized places (states), many far from each other, and no less divergent in culture and livelihood.
…
The Democratic Socialists of America’s proposals to abolish the Senate and concentrate power in the hands of the urban dole-masters amount to a formula for the dissolution of our country.

That is, indeed, the goal of the DSA. In addition to abolishing the Senate, they want to abolish our borders, defund—abolish—our local police forces, and tear down our prisons. That would most certainly destroy our nation.

Another writes,

Can DSA members take the Congressional Oath of Office honestly? They must “solemnly swear” that “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.” It’s hard to see how an adherent to the DSA’s written platform could swear that earnestly, even believably.

In essence, the very first act of a DSA Congressman or Senator on his ascendancy to office would be to commit perjury during his swearing in.

The DSA’s platform can be read here. Understand, too, that the DSA’s platform is rapidly becoming the platform of the Progressive-Democratic Party, as the two continue to merge into each other.

I’ve Said These Before

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However, they bear repeating.

The WSJ editors rightly warn against killing the Senate filibuster. Progressive-Democratic Party Senators already have committed to eliminating it as soon as they seize the majority. Ill-informed Republican Senators, along with unthinking Republican Senators and President Donald Trump (R), are pushing to eliminate the filibuster first on the idiocy that the Progressive-Democrats are going to do it, anyway, so why not, and on the excuse that it’s necessary in order to pass the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.

The SAVE Act is, indeed, a critical piece of legislation, and one that the House already has passed, twice. However, it’s not worth the elimination of the filibuster, which would lead to far more and far wider damage to our Republic.

The loss of the filibuster would reduce the Senate to a simple majority rule popular contest, which along with the House’s simple majority rule would reduce our nation to a popular democracy and the elimination of our republican democracy.

With the filibuster intact, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R, SD) should hold the vote, regardless of his view of the potential vote count. Average Americans need to know, ahead of this fall’s elections, which Senators of either party favor secure elections in which only American citizens vote, and which ones favor, openly or tacitly, elections in which non-citizens, including illegal aliens, are allowed to vote.

“Journalists Shouldn’t Have To Face That Risk”

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The “risk” that Judith Miller, of the Manhattan Institute, faced was going to jail (temporarily realized for all of three months as she refused to give up the source who’d illegally passed her national security information. Miller wants a shield law that would place journalists above the law.

This is typical—demonstrative—of the intrinsically arrogant and dishonest “industry” of which she is a part.

By Miller’s own admission, she had been given a leak of national-security information. This was an obvious illegal transferal, and everywhere outside the journalism guild, receiving stolen property like this “leak” was would itself be a crime.

Further to Miller’s dishonesty, she chose to conflate her subpoena with the recent badly done subpoenas for New York Time news writers as though badly done subpoenas justify tossing correctly done ones like the one that sent her to jail for three months.

Further to Miller’s dishonesty, she noted that she was released only when her contempt of court was cured by her source giving her permission to reveal him. No permission was necessary and no permission is necessary today: journalists must be required to give up their sources of illegally transferred information whether or not they choose to publish those stolen goods.

Shield law: she already has one, as she noted:

…Justice Department guidelines call for issuing subpoenas to journalists only as a last resort and after a thorough investigation fails to determine the source of the leak….

Along with our court system, which deals appropriately with subpoenas to journalists that do not meet those guidelines, just as the court did with those NYT subpoenas.

There is no right of confidentiality for journalist-source relationships, as there is for lawyer-client or doctor-patient, nor should there be. Even with those latter two relationships, lawyers and doctors are required to notify law enforcement or other appropriate authority of the fact of an impending crime if not of which of their clients or patients may be the impending criminal.

Finally, Miller doesn’t even know what national security-related information is:

National security wasn’t compromised by the Qatari plane stories….

Of course it was. The President’s change of movement plans in response to a perceived security threat, as that NYT article itself acknowledged, certainly was national security related, compromising as it did the President’s movement changes, the fact that our government knew about a threat in advance of its realization, and compromised that threat’s goal before they could attempt their move and be intercepted and arrested.

Constitutionally protected newsgathering is vital to a democracy.

Certainly. But there is no constitutional protection for receiving stolen goods. Neither is that protection necessary for effective newsgathering.

In one respect, though, Miller is right about facing the risk of jail. Jail for concealing the sources of illegally transmitted information should be a certainty. Even if the source is later identified. The illegal reception crime would still exist and still want jail in response.