Category Archives: politics

Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton’s Emails

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Progressive-Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez can see no daylight between Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s documents and ex-Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails.

This is like the Hillary emails because there was nothing there.

Perez is right that the two are alike. Clinton, with the help of her allies in and out of government, covered up her government-business emails that she had on her personal, unsecured server. Biden, with the help of his allies in and out of government, at Party headquarters, and at the University of Delaware, is covering up a significant fraction of his documents during the present Tara Reade case.

[W]hen you ask the University of Delaware to take a look at something, you’re asking them to look for something that doesn’t exist.

That’s easy enough to show. Allow those UD documents to be searched for materials related to Reade. Let those documents then be perused carefully for information related to her charge and Biden’s claim to the contrary.

This could be settled in a couple of days.  If there’s nothing there, there’ll be nothing found.

We know what frightens Clinton so much. Of what are Biden, Perez, and Party so afraid?

Biden is Tough on the PRC

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Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden says so. And he’s actually going to run on that thesis.

However.

Leaving aside Hunter’s profiteering on Daddy’s coattails in the People’s Republic of China—that’s just the scummy topping on the gruel—Biden’s track record in dealing with the PRC as Senator and as Vice President is one of failure after failure to get, even to try to get, balanced trade deals and even-handed treatment of American companies wanting to do business inside the PRC.

It was, for instance, during the time frames about which Biden brags that the PRC successfully began demanding US companies to take on PRC company partners as a prerequisite to doing business there, to “share” company and American technologies and company proprietary materials and intellectual properties with those partners, and to allow PRC government backdoor access to US companies’ critical software.

All of this was done without Biden objecting, which he could have done, forcefully, whether or not he could have brought those administrations along with him.

Biden chose to be silent on all of these. Every single one of them.

Another Clue

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…into the machinations of the “liberal” wing of the Supreme Court.

The Court is going to hear oral arguments on 10 cases that the Wuhan Virus situation had previously forced the Court to postpone. The arguments will be done by teleconference. The structure of the oral arguments will be…structured…during the teleconferances.

The court is also jettisoning its unstructured process for questioning the lawyers before them. Instead of jumping in at will, the justices will speak in order by seniority, beginning with Chief Justice John Roberts, moving on to Justice Clarence Thomas—a moment that may hold some suspense, as he can go years without speaking at oral argument—and so on to the newest justice, Brett Kavanaugh.

Here’s the kicker from that more formalized structure:

The format could pose challenges for Justice Elena Kagan and other junior members who sometimes seek to shape the debate by posing questions early.

Shape the debate.  Because Kagan and her fellows aren’t interested in dispassionately hearing argument on the case before them and then, with equal dispassion, ruling on the matter before them. No, they’re at war with one or the other side and must shape the battlefield in order to achieve their…victory.

What a shameful thing for a Justice, who’s supposed to be objective and unbiased—sworn, in fact, to faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent—to do.

Micromanagement

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California’s Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has published a list of activities he deems permissible for Californians to engage in while they’re outdoors.

Specific activities, carefully enumerated. Not principles of (social distancing) behaviors, particular behaviors.

Activities Newsom will allow [scroll down to Outdoor recreation] include

  • badminton—singles, mind you, doubles are too many
  • BMX biking—but not just pedaling around neighborhood
  • gardening—again, singles. Your kids or spouse aren’t allowed to help
  • car-washing—here, too, no spousal or kid help. And if it’s a kid chore, he’s on his own
  • tree climbing—unspecified as to whether a boost up is allowed
  • picnics (with your stay-home household members only)—but these persons aren’t allowed to participate with you in any of the above. Go figure
  • throwing a football, kicking a soccer ball (not in groups)—apparently you have to go get your own football or soccer ball after you’ve thrown/kicked it. Or maybe you’re allowed to get your dog to fetch

The list goes on. Throwing a baseball or a frisbee isn’t enumerated, so those likely are barred. Newsom claims his list is non-exhaustive, but it’s entirely too detailed and picayune to believe that it’s not nearly so.

This is the sort of micromanagement that demonstrates both the incredible insecurity of the micromanager and his tyrannical tendencies.

This is not the freedom and personal responsibility that Californians used to have.

A Post-Wuhan Virus Situation Supply Chain Environment

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The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based news outlet, has a five-part series in progress regarding outcomes potentially stemming from the current situation. My comments here concern remarks from the SCMP‘s third part.

Consensus is growing in Beijing that the coronavirus pandemic is set to make the world more hostile towards China, undermining the accommodating international environment that underpinned the country’s spectacular rise from a closed communist backwater into a global economic powerhouse.

With considerable justification, given the PRC’s steady drumbeat of coverup, lies, and subsequent shipment of dangerously shoddy masks and Wuhan Virus testing kits.

Aside from that, the PRC’s “spectacular rise” more accurately has been from a closed communist backwater into a closed communist global economic powerhouse.

There’s this, too:

Beijing’s pledge that China will remain investor-friendly and open its market further to foreign businesses.

This pledge is another broken commitment. The PRC has never been investor friendly.

The PRC government continues to require foreign businesses to take domestic companies as partners, for all that the domestics’ “participation” is no longer required to be a controlling interest. Such partnerships remain required, and the foreign company remains required to share critical technologies and intellectual properties with those partners. Given that PRC law requires all domestic businesses to cooperate with the government’s intelligence collecting agencies, that means those foreign companies still will be…sharing…their technologies and intellectual properties with the PRC government.

In the end, the necessary realignment of the world’s value chains needs to be an alteration of those chains to remove the PRC from any participation in any step that leaves other nations dependent on PRC production for their own national or economic (which is national) security. It may, or may not, be useful to include, to an extent, PRC production or communications facilities in those chains. However, with the lack of reliability and quality of output that the folks manning the nation’s government have chosen to ship in their response to the global crisis Beijing has unleashed, such an inclusion must necessarily be sufficiently constrained that a PRC disruption cannot threaten the security or weal of other nations.

Keep in mind, too, that PRC has long history of choosing to export dangerously bad products: powdered milk adulterated with melamine, baby food preparations with…impurities, poisoned pet food, sheets of plywood made with formaldehyde that outgasses into homes to poison the occupants.