“The humanitarian situation…is dire”

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That’s the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly’s “clarification” after Canada so timidly refused to take a stand on a UN resolution calling for a “humanitarian” ceasefire truce in Gaza.

She added,

What is unfolding in Gaza is also a human tragedy.

It certainly is. But any sort of ceasefire would only give the Hamas terrorist gang time to reset its defenses, move it terrorists and weapons and ammunition around, and relocate the hostages the terrorists have seized. Any ceasefire now, of any duration, would only tell the terrorists and their Iranian overlords that what they’re doing works, and the terrorists will continue, if not presently, then some time in the future. Thinking any sort of agreement with terrorists can have civilized results is dangerously naïve.

No.

The optimal way—the only long-term way—to protect and recover those hostages that the terrorists haven’t already murdered is for Israel’s allies—us and Great Britain—to step up arms and ammunition aid to Israel, and for Israel’s pretend allies—e.g., Canada, and France, which actually voted for the UN “ceasefire”—to remain where they are now, in their safety on the sidelines, but do so quietly.

Israel must be able to completely destroy Hamas and its ability to commit further terrorism. When that’s done, terrorist hostage-taking in the future will be greatly reduced, as well as those current hostages still alive rescued.

We Will Respond

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That’s what Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden said through his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his NSC spokesman John Kirby regarding Iran’s attacks, through its terrorist surrogates, on our military facilities in the Middle East. “Boy, oh boy, when I get you,” goes the 2nd grade recess playground taunt.

Then, after 14 such attacks, Biden ordered a couple of bombs lobbed at a couple of trivial terrorist sites in Syria.

That “response” was so powerful, so message-sending, that Iran’s proxies have continued—and apparently increased—their attacks on our facilities.

Biden is so desperate to get back into a nuclear weapons development deal with Iran that, far from deterring Iran, the mullahs are successfully deterring Biden.

Federalism and State Taxes

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A Wall Street Journal editorial opens with this:

One great benefit of America’s federalist Constitution is policy competition among the states. Voters in Florida don’t have to live under New York’s laws, and Americans and businesses can vote with their feet by moving across state lines.

The editors proceeded to a description of State-level tax laws and the mobility of us Americans and our businesses in leaving States with high taxes in favor of States with, often markedly, lower taxes. But that lede overstates the case.

Federalism applies, often, with State taxes, but State-level business regulations are a different matter. It’s only necessary to see the outsize impact on our auto industry, for instance, or our pork industry, that California’s regulations have on vehicle requirements and on how hogs must be raised to see the lack of federalism in our regulatory environment.

With specific regard to California’s fuel requirements, there’s this from the Federal government’s EPA:

The Clean Air Act allows California to seek a waiver of the preemption which prohibits states from enacting emission standards for new motor vehicles.

The Federal government has long granted that waiver, and during the Biden administration, the feds made their latest move—overtly to refuse to rescind the waiver, effectively nationalizing a State regulation at the expense of federalism.

On the California’s hog-raising regulation, the Supreme Court upheld that regulation, which mandated the minimum space in which hogs must be raised, anywhere in the United States, in order for them to be marketable in California. The Court nationalized this State-level regulation—again at the expense of federalism.

If we’re going to preserve our federalist structure of governance, federalism must be restored to State regulations, as well as State-level taxes. Don’t look for any of that to happen under any Progressive-Democratic Party-dominated Federal government, though.

How About Unauthorized Entry?

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Maybe California’s Progressive-Democratic Party politicians are beginning to recognize the failure of their soft-on-crime policies. Or at least they’re beginning to pay lip service to the problem, if not its correction. In particular, they’re starting to talk about maybe tightening their law regarding auto burglary.

Under current law, prosecutors must prove a vehicle was locked to convict a suspect of auto burglary, and a window being broken is not sufficient evidence. This new proposed legislation from [State] Senator Scott Wiener (D, San Francisco) would end that requirement and allow forcible entry to be sufficient evidence for a conviction.

Some of the loophole exploitations are truly foolish.

  • someone broke a car window, completed a theft, and left the door open or unlocked
  • victim returns to the car and opens the door before police can take a report to establish the car was locked
  • victim forgets whether they locked their doors
  • victim is not available to testify in court that their doors were locked

Here’s a thought. Work with me on this; it’s a complex matter. Neither is it limited to a single party. How about adjusting the law to recognize that burglary is burglary, regardless of the means by which it’s carried out, even if it’s done with no damage at all. Any damage that is done, whatever that damage might be, should serve as sentencing enhancement.

Maybe broaden the concept and stop overcomplexifying criminal laws in general. The fillips that currently distinguish burglary from theft from breaking and entering from… and that discriminate the various forms of homicide, and that overparse other forms of crime, all should become sentencing enhancements for the underlying crime: theft, killing, etc. Such decomplexification, especially done nationwide, would well serve us all.

The 9th Circuit Got This One Right

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A recent Wall Street Journal opinion concerned the question of when, or whether, a political figure who creates a personal social media account(s) can bar members of the public from interacting with those accounts. In

Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and TJ Zane, elected school board members in California, used personal Facebook and Twitter accounts they created while running for office to campaign and inform constituents about education news. The officials blocked two parents for making “repetitious and non-responsive comments” on their pages.

In O‘Connor-Ratcliff v Garnier, the 9th Circuit said the two board members could not do that.

The panel held that, under the circumstances presented here, the Trustees acted under color of state law by using their social media pages as public fora in carrying out their official duties. The panel further held that, applying First Amendment public forum criteria, the restrictions imposed on the plaintiffs’ expression were not appropriately tailored to serve a significant governmental interest and so were invalid.

And

The protections of the First Amendment apply no less to the “vast democratic forums of the Internet” than they do to the bulletin boards or town halls of the corporeal world. … When state actors enter that virtual world and invoke their government status to create a forum for such expression, the First Amendment enters with them.

The editors generally disagreed with this ruling, and they closed their piece with this bit.

Americans have many platforms to criticize public officials without invading their personal social-media pages.

That’s plainly true. So, too, is the related: elected politicians (the editors seem to have subsumed—erroneously—unelected bureaucrats into the term “public officials,” whereas the court’s ruling plainly concerned only elected officials) have many platforms with which to describe, and to interact with their constituents regarding, their political and official doings without using their so-called personal accounts to do so and then limiting their constituents’, and the public-at-large’s, ability to respond and to petition [them], whether courteously or rudely.

I’ll go one farther than did the 9th. It’s not possible for an elected government official to have a personal social media account. An elected official represents his constituents at all times of the day and night, every day and night of every year he holds office, for all that as a practical matter, he takes time away from his duties to rest and recreate. From that, it’s impossible for him to have a non-public social media account so long as he holds elected office.

The 9th got this one right.

The Circuit Court’s ruling can be read here.