Category Archives: politics

South China Sea Nonsense

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In response to Secretary of Defense James Mattis’, on his recent trip to the region, calling out the People’s Republic of China for its aggressions in the South China Sea, the PRC’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, had this to say.

China’s defense is for safeguarding China’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity[.]

This, of course, is nonsense, since the People’s Republic of China has no territory, and so no territorial integrity or sovereignty interests, in the South China Sea.

She went on to criticize us for our “Cold War mentality.”  If the PRC is truly concerned about a new cold war, it should desist from making one and withdraw from its occupation of international waters and islands.

A First Amendment Beef

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This one, I think, is a bad beef.  A Columbia University club known as the Knight First Amendment Institute, styling themselves a First Amendment advocate organization, has taken notice of the fact that President Donald Trump has blocked some folks from his personal twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, an account he’s had since well before the campaign and his election.  The Director of the Institute, Jameel Jaffer, wrote a letter to “the Trump administration” claiming that the Constitution “requires” those accounts to be unblocked.

Users who have been blocked cannot follow you on Twitter, and they are limited in their ability to view your tweets, find your tweets using Twitter’s search function, and learn which accounts follow you….  Blocking users from your Twitter account violates the First Amendment. When the government makes a space available to the public at large for the purpose of expressive activity, it creates a public forum from which it may not constitutionally exclude individuals on the basis of viewpoint. This is true even if the space in question is “metaphysical” rather than physical.

What Jaffer is ignoring, among other things, is that the government did not create the @realDOnaldTrump account; private citizen Donald Trump did.  The government created the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse accounts.

The President’s personal twitter account is not the same thing as @POTUS or @WhiteHouse, which are public forums created by the White House some administrations ago specifically for the purpose of passing out White House announcements and, perhaps, exchanging views.

So what do we have?  This is what the 1st Amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

None of that applies here.  Trump’s blocking some folks from his personal twitter feed has nothing at all to do with religion, nor does it restrict the press—NLMSM or legitimate—at all.  Even the use of social media as press—this blog, for instance, or established press’ and pressmen’s own Facebook pages, twitter feeds, Instagram setups, etc are not restricted in the slightest.

That leaves the question of free speech, peaceful assembly, and petitioning of the Government.

None of these are impacted by blocking some twitterers from a private account, either.  Those folks still have unfettered access to the government via the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse accounts: they still can engage in free speech activities with the administration and with Trump; they still can peacefully assemble, even if that assembly is “metaphysical,” and they still can fully petition the Government.  And that’s just through the government’s twitter feeds.  These folks also have access via the White House’s Facebook page, email even via old-fashioned snail mail.

This is just some folks with more time on their hands than productive activities along with their rent-seeking lawyers manufacturing another excuse to whine.

Climate…Contrast

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The US has reduced its CO2 emissions steadily, and by lots, since the 1990s while Europe is lately increasing its emissions, yet the EU is chastising us for going out from a foolish Paris Climate Accord, whose pseudo-commitments—by design not enforceable—would not have materially reduced global temperature rises even if fully met.

And this:

The report suggests a slightly colder winter across Europe also contributed to increased emissions, due to higher demand for heating.

Wait, wait—colder winter?  But, global warming….

At Least Some Integrity

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David Rank, Chargé d’affaires at our embassy in the People’s Republic of China, has resigned his position and is retiring from the foreign service over President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the Paris Climate Accord.

Although Rank is wrong on the matter, he has displayed considerable with his retirement: unlike so many Obama administration hold-overs (he held several senior diplomatic positions throughout Asia during those eight years), he’s chosen to leave the service rather than stay on and sabotage the new administration’s policies from within.

Related to this, albeit tangentially, is the AP’s carefully slanted final paragraph in its piece carrying this report of Rank’s resignation and retirement.

China and the US are the world’s two largest emitters of man-made carbon dioxide, considered a top cause of climate change, and agreement between them on capping emissions helped pave the way for the Paris agreement among more than 190 nations.

What the AP chose to elide here are two things: one is the fact that atmospheric CO2’s classification as a pollutant is based on pseudo-science.  The other is the fact that the US’ emissions rate has been on a downward path since the 1990s, while the PRC’s emissions have been growing markedly, and the PRC has no plan to begin reducing its emission rate until 2030—if then.

The Rich Are Out Of Money?

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They are in Connecticut, anyway, or at least out of trust in the State’s government regarding their money.  Or the State is out of rich.  Aetna, Inc, one of the giants of health and dental coverage that’s headquartered in Connecticut is looking hard at joining the exodus from the State, having grown tired of being the State’s tax piggy bank.

Governor Dannel Malloy (D) says he’ll match other states’ financial incentives—not exceed—if only Aetna will stay, but as The Wall Street Journal put it, “taxpayer money can’t buy fiscal certainty and a less destructive business climate.”

The result of the Left’s assaults on the wealthy’s pocketbooks?  The Left has shattered its own rice bowl.  The State’s Office of Fiscal Analysis

reduced its two-year revenue forecast by $1.46 billion. Since January the agency has downgraded income-tax revenue for 2017 and 2018 by $1.1 billion (6%). Sales- and corporate-tax revenue are projected to fall by $385 million (9%) and $67 million (7%), respectively, this year. Pension contributions, which have doubled since 2010, will increase by a third over the next two years. The result: a $5.1 billion deficit and three recent credit downgrades.

The remaining rich are bugging out, headed for States that appreciate the jobs—and resulting expanded incomes and revenues for those States—that these guys and their companies bring with them.

[emphasis added] In the past five years 27,400 Connecticut residents…have moved to no-income-tax Florida, and seven of the state’s eight counties have lost population since 2010. Population flight has depressed economic growth—Connecticut’s real GDP has shrunk by 0.1% since 2010—as well as home values and sales-tax revenues.

Hmm….