Category Archives: politics

I Have a Question

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In his article centered on the right-next-door-to-a coup d’etat playing out in Poland and by extension in Europe, the news writer likened both situations to the 11th century Investiture Controversy, a kerfuffle over who got to appoint Bishops in the Catholic Church, the Pope as head of the Church, or the Holy Roman Empire’s Emperor, as the guy with the armies. In the modern case, instead of letting the Poles deal with its internal dispute without external molestation, the EU has chosen to butt in and demand that the Polish supreme court, however populated, comport itself with EU law.

The analogy isn’t exact, but it’s extremely close. With the EU’s active interference, the argument is over

who has the authority to judge laws and constitutions in member states.

The Investiture Controversy, played out, left Europe in very weakened straits, with the Turks baying at their eastern marches and the Saracens hounding up from the south. Today, with the EU demanding unquestioned authority over the sovereign member states, the continent will be left just as weakened and divided with barbarian Russia howling at the continent’s eastern ramparts and a freshening flood of illegal aliens pouring up from the south.

Which brings me to my question, an old one, but still current: how many divisions does the European Union have?

Broken LA

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In his WSJ piece about the mayoral race in Los Angeles between a hard core Progressive-Democratic Party incumbent and a dual member of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Progressive-Democratic Party upstart, Karen Bass and Nithya Raman, respectively, the news writer wrote about the broken condition of the city and each candidate’s hopes and dreams (my characterization) for fixing it.

It took an average of seven days to fix a pothole in the fiscal year that ended June 30, up from 0.9 days in 2021-22. Also, the average response time to repair a streetlight outage rose to 224 working days from 31 over the same period, amid a spate of copper-wire theft.

A week to fix a pothole and nearly a year for a streetlight. It’s ridiculous even for those repairs to take the earlier 21 hours and an entire month. If the pothole takes more than a couple of hours to fill with asphalt for a sound repair, it’s only because the city had let the hole fester for so long that a far more extensive repair became necessary. It’s even worse for the streetlight. A month!?

Big government regulation, at the core of those delays and which has so severely damaged the city over the last 25 years of Progressive-Democratic rule, is unlikely to be reduced—indeed, quite the opposite—whether the city is ruled by another Progressive-Democrat or by a socialist running as a Progressive-Democrat.

Regarding the potholes and streetlights in particular, it should be as simple as, channeling Major John “Mac” McGillis, see the hole, fix the hole; see the light, fix the light.

Fat chance under LA’s new old regime.

“Media Bias”

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In his WSJ op-ed regarding Effective Altruism and media bias, Andy Kessler had this remark:

Mr Stewart says he isn’t a journalist, but he and others like him helped kill media’s credibility.

Not at all. Journalists—the “media”—killed their own credibility, beginning as far back in my lifetime with Cronkite’s manufactured anger embedded in his “What’s going on here?” in the early stages of the Tet offensive, when he knew full well that what was going on was the utter destruction of the Viet Cong as a political and military entity in that war. From the end of Tet on, that side of the war was fought exclusively by the North Vietnamese Army.

Nor was it Stewart and others like him, or comedians generally, who printed on the NYT front page that tabloid’s decision to take sides in its news “reporting;” they would no longer print news objectively.

Nor was it anyone else that prompted CBS‘ Bob Simon infamously to declare that there not two sides to every story. Some had only one side, and he and his fellow “journalists” were the sole determiners of when and where that would be determined.

Nor was it Stewart, et al., who caused the “media” to spike the Hunter Biden laptop story. “Journalists” did that all by themselves.

Nor was it comedians who censored viewpoints on social media. That was social media managers doing that all by themselves, even as they cowered behind the fig leaf of government “pressure.”

The list is pretty extensive, and this is just politics.

The list extends into “climate” hyping. For instance, the Los Angeles Times print “news” outlet announced that it would no longer print letters to the editor that rebutted global warming arguments, since the science was settled and there could be no rebuttal.

Kessler needs to get out more.

Hold Politicians Accountable?

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Dave Brody, of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, opened his Friday op-ed in the WSJ with this:

Michigan voters appear poised to approve a ballot initiative opposing “dark money” in politics on November 3. What Michiganders don’t seem to realize is that this proposal could keep them in the dark by making it harder for journalists to hold politicians accountable.

Even if we could take is strenuous self-congratulatory second paragraph or his crocodile tears later in his piece seriously, he would be an isolated outlier in the field of what passes for American journalism.

American journalism studiously spiked all reporting about Hunter Biden’s laptop while the elder Biden was President.

American journalism determinedly downplayed then-Senator Joe Biden’s (D, DE) casual mishandling of classified documents.

American journalism enthusiastically hyped—and still does—President Donald Trump’s (R) every move and statement of which those worthies personally disapprove.

American journalism avidly yoks it up over one of their own bantering and joking with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D, MN) over the question of her alleged marriage to her brother.

American journalism hides its bias—and thereby exposes it—behind repeated cites and quotes of “officials familiar” and “people who were present” while just as determinedly refuses to answer any question of what standard of journalistic integrity they use after having long since walked away from an editorial requirement for at least two on-the-record sources to corroborate any number of anonymous sources in an article.

Journalists holding politicians accountable. It is to laugh. If Michigan voters vote up the dark money ballot initiative, they’ll lose nothing regarding journalism.

Bigotry and Virtue Signaling

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Making land acknowledgments purporting to recognize the inequity of modern political, social, and economic successes have been in vogue among the Left and Progressive-Democratic Party political jurisdictions for some years. The recently done land acknowledgment from Los Angeles County provides a clear and canonical example, its repeated bodice-ripping mea culpas are especially illustrative: We respectfully acknowledge… and We acknowledge… and We recognize….

What’s instructive, though, is the utter lack of proposed solutions in these so-called acknowledgments. “We’re so sorry about all this; sucks to be you, good luck.”

That’s not just hypocrisy by these Leftists and Progressive-Democratic Party members; these…statements…demonstrate the same racist bigotry, if far more invidiously, as the Left’s and Party’s insultingly bigoted premise that black Americans are intrinsically inferior and desperately need the plethora of special treatments from Government, from “affirmative” action programs to race-based (now sotto voce) selections into universities and employment, in order to be able to operate, much less compete, in the same world as the rest of us.

Virtue signaling. Too bad, so sad. Carry on.