Category Archives: politics

EU-PRC Trade Relations

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There’s a new tone in the relationship between the People’s Republic of China and the European Union. The two have agreed the following:

  • A commitment toward “broader” and “non-discriminatory” market access
  • On surrendering intellectual property to gain access to China’s market, both sides agreed “there should not be a forced transfer of technology”
  • Increase efforts to strengthen international rules against state subsidies for industries

A commitment. We’ve seen in US-PRC trade discussions over the years, in the PRC’s responses to WTO rulings—indeed its own commitments made as conditions to its accession to the WTO—in its treatment of those with whom it deals along its Belt and Road efforts, in its treatment of South China Sea rim nations the value of PRC commitments.

No forced transfer of technology.  But perhaps some encouragement.  “Nice company you got there. Be too bad if something was to happen to it.”  And not a word about required backdoors into a company’s proprietary or operating software so the PRC’s government men can come and go on the claim that those men need to ensure the company is…behaving.

Increase efforts regarding state subsidies.  The PRC will try very hard.

We’ll see if there’s more than just a change in tone.  I’m not holding my breath.  The EU, and the US, has a venerable history of credulity regarding the PRC’s rhetoric.

A Recognition

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At last, the racism inherent in affirmative action is starting to be recognized.

Civil rights officials at the US Education Department are requiring the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center medical school to cease factoring race into admissions decisions, putting other institutions of higher education on notice that their continued use of affirmative action policies will draw federal scrutiny.

The rest of the Texas Tech University System has already eliminated the use of racist (and sexist) affirmative action policies in its admissions process.

There’ll continue to be resistance, though, in the “academic” community.  Here’s Peter McDonough, Vice President and General Counsel for the American Council on Education

We do worry that a college or university may interpret a report of a resolution…as saying, “If you take race or ethnicity into account, you can be investigated.”

I certainly hope so.  Neither racism nor the bigotry of ethnicity preference—nor sexism—has any place in American society, much less as a selection criterion for anything.

Next up: completing this evolution by formally and explicitly ridding affirmative action of its inherent sexism.

Then, to saucer and blow this travesty, we need the Supreme Court to stop dithering, recognize that ex-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s 20 years are long expired, and eliminate all vestiges of the use of race, or sex, or ethnicity, or any other non-merit-related discriminant from affirmative action programs.

Progressive-Democrat’s Bigotry

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Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D, MN) has displayed her bigotry again.  This time she’s called Stephen Miller, a senior advisor for President Donald Trump, a white nationalist.

Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage.

She also knows that Miller is a Jew.  This is just another of her blatant anti-Semitic bigotry, which now she’s using to smear the President over his immigration policies, because Omar is incapable of forming a coherent argument regarding immigration.

Paraphrasing her own six-year-old daughter: Knock it off. You’re a Congresswoman.

And, because the Progressive-Democratic Party agrees with her behavior, as plainly shown by their refusal to condemn her prior anti-Semitic remarks and House Party members remaining silent on this latest slur, I add this: Knock it off.  You’re a political party.

The fact that Omar still has influence in a political party is an outrage.

Regulating State Tax Incentives

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There Ought to be a Law was the title of an old Reader’s Digest humor column: every little pet peeve came in for a jokingly recommended law barring it.  Because More Government is always the solution.

Barton Swaim, in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, actually takes that seriously, and he wants to apply it to the idea of States and cities offering businesses tax incentives to get them to build in those jurisdictions.  He wants the Federal government to…regulate…what those State and local jurisdictions can do to entice businesses.

He’s even holding up the European Union as a paragon in this venue.

The European Union imposes significant restrictions on how much member states or regional governments can offer companies to entice them to expand or relocate.

This is the same EU, keep in mind, that is constantly trying to bully low-tax member nations to charge more and higher taxes, rather than encouraging high-tax member nations to lower and lessen theirs.

Never mind that, though.

Why couldn’t Congress impose a simplified version of this principle on state and local governments?

It’s true enough that many of those incentive deals the States and locals turn out to be lousy from the States’ and locals’ perspective.  Why, then, shouldn’t the Federal government dictate to the States and local governments what those bodies should do with their own citizens’ and residents’ money? For their own good, you see.  Besides, isn’t it the Federal government’s money, anyway, and not those citizens’ and residents’?

Be more like Europe, and be more infested with central diktats than we already are. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Because, after all, States (and the local jurisdictions within them), to paraphrase John Jay, have the same relationship to the Federal government that counties have to the States: mere political jurisdictions set up to facilitate enforcement of Federal laws.

Federal republic be damned.

Sure.

Backwards

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A 9th Circuit District Judge has said that illegal aliens claiming to seek asylum in the US cannot be sent back to Mexico to wait for their day in court.  The judge’s ruling held, in essence, that

…the administration lacked a legal basis under current law for adopting the policy. He also found the policy ran afoul of the US’ legal obligations not to remove people to a country where their lives or freedom are threatened.

This is wrong on both counts. The whole point of Executive Actions of any sort is to fill a gap in “current law” and so to accomplish something that a President determines needs doing.  The laws authorizing such things explicitly authorize a President to fill such gaps.  Certainly, a President cannot create new law; his Orders, Proclamations, and so on, must fit within the existing legal system—and, not being law, they can be undone by subsequent Presidents via the same mechanisms.

What’s required is a law that prevents this or that policy from being adopted by Executive Action, and that law does not exist.  This Federal judge is legislating from the bench, and that’s a violation of his oath of office.

The other wrong is the judge’s claim that moving purported asylum seekers back to Mexico to wait for their case to be heard is moving them to a nation where their lives or freedom are threatened.  This is simply nonsense. Mexico has offered these folks asylum in Mexico, and that nation has gone further: it’s offered them job opportunities so they can earn their way while they wait—or in the event they choose to stay.  Mexico is a far safer nation than any of the three Caravan Triangle nations whence most of these purported asylum seekers began their trek.  Indeed, the judge’s ruling on this aspect misreads the law.  Claimants must make their claims on the basis of the country they’re leaving, not the country from which they originated.  That’s Mexico, not Honduras, or El Salvador, or Guatemala.

There’s one other factor here, too.  These folks should have no case when their claims do come up in court.  They can’t possibly be seeking asylum when they’ve already been offered precisely that from the nation they’re trying to leave to enter the US, and rejected it.