Category Archives: politics

In a Contest of Tariffs

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In a piece purporting to show Where the Trade Battle Hurts the Most, Julie Wernau and Ira Iosebashvili had this comment:

Renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement are being closely watched in Canada, too. The Trump administration has used threats of auto tariffs to win concessions from Canada and Mexico, a strategy that hasn’t sat well with the two countries.

President Donald Trump also offered them, and the rest of the G-7, a regime of no tariffs at all. Their refusal even to discuss the offer doesn’t sit well with those of us outside the NLMSM.

Hysteria

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Is the Left, in its hysteria, turning more violent?  And I don’t mean just Antifa or BLM.  Or last year’s attempt by a Leftist kook to murder Republican Congressmen.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was threatened by a group of “protestors” as he left a restaurant last Saturday.  One of them shouted

We know where you live, Mitch. We know where you live.

As McConnell left in his car, another of the “protestors” was self-congratulatory:

We did good, fellow citizens.

It’s not just kooks, anymore; these threats of violence and the potential for violence, is going mainstream, as Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D, CA) actively eggs them on, and “mainstream” Progressive-Democrats remain silent beyond a few vapid words on the Senate floor.

This is the level of freedom toward which we can look, if we’re not careful this fall.

A Thought on Auto Tariffs

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The Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board is worried about auto tariffs.  They do make a fair case concerning the national security aspect of our automobile industry (while eliding the fact that industry includes many more car companies than just GM, Ford, and Chrysler—and that none of them manufacture cars in the US, while all of them assemble cars in the US from imported parts).

They weaken, fatally IMNSHO, their argument, though, when they present only one aspect of the case for/against auto tariffs or the threat of significant increases in already extant auto tariffs.  In particular, the Editorial Board has carefully elided the fact that the Trump administration and German auto manufacturers have agreed in principle to a no-auto-tariff-at-all regime.

Now it’s on the German government and Brussels to agree.  It’s likely, although not certain, that plans to impose a 20% tariff on auto imports from the EU had an impact in moving the German companies toward eliminating tariffs altogether.

A no-auto-tariff regime also would render the security beef moot, but some folks on the Left don’t want that.

Facebook Strikes Again

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Facebook, for a while, decided that our Declaration of Independence was filled with hate speech.  In particular, Facebook decided that

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions[]

which closed the list of Facts our nascent nation submitted to a candid world

goes against our [Facebook’s] standards on hate speech.

Facebook then threatened The Washington Times, which had been posting to its Facebook account successive parts of our Declaration leading up to our Independence Day celebration—which was to have included that hateful passage—with the loss of its Facebook account.

Facebook’s algorithm did it.  That’s the company’s story, and apparently they’re sticking to it.

It’s true enough that Facebook later reposted the censored passage and…apologized…for the “error.”

That, though, does not alter the simple fact that Zuckerberg’s minions, hiding behind that algorithm—which Zuckerberg’s IT experts had carefully programmed—had committed this act of censorship of our Declaration of Independence.

Nor does it alter the simple fact that Zuckerberg and his minions waited to restore the censored passage until after they’d been publicly called on their misbehavior.  They did not proactively, on their own initiative, undo their misbehavior.

This is free speech, Left style.  Not even our founding documents can be posted without a struggle today.  Just like when they first were published.

The Case Against Brett Kavanaugh

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The writer JD Vance, this time in The Wall Street Journal, has made a strong case for Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the DC Circuit, being nominated for the Supreme Court.

He is a committed textualist and originalist, one whose time on the bench has revealed a unique ability to apply these principles to legal facts. He deeply believes in the constitutional separation of powers as a means for ensuring governmental accountability and protecting individual liberty.

And

…Judge Kavanaugh’s opinions have been adopted by the Justices 11 times—a record of influence and persuasion that suggests he would be effective on the still-divided high court.

I disagree, though.  Ex-President Barack Obama (D) stacked the DC Circuit with a number of “liberal,” activist judges.  Kavanaugh is more valuable, say I, staying on the DC Circuit, where he can apply those qualities in counterbalancing that liberally stacked court.  He still will have, from there, the influence on the Supreme Court and on our jurisprudence generally that he already has.

There are a number of other judges with the same talents, skills, and understanding of and appreciation for our Constitution, its text, and the text of our laws.  Any of those would make excellent choices for the Supreme Court.

It’s true enough that any of those also would make excellent choices for backfilling Kavanaugh should he depart for the Supremes.  However, that would require a second confirmation hearing and Progressive-Democratic Party time-wasting fight.