A Question

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Pope Francis has renewed an…agreement…between the Vatican and the People’s Republic of China that allows appointment of Catholic Bishops in the PRC, so long as the PRC’s government men approve of the candidates and their appointment. Nominally, the Pope has veto authority over the nominations, but it’s the PRC government men who nominate. Since 2018—when the agreement was signed—there have been six bishops ordained, and 40 dioceses still have no bishop. That’s how well this arrangement is working.

Despite that, the Holy See Press Office had this:

The Vatican Party is committed to continuing a respectful and constructive dialogue with the Chinese Party for a productive implementation of the Accord and further development of bilateral relations, with a view to fostering the mission of the Catholic Church and the good of the Chinese people[.]

Furthermore, Pope Francis views [the agreement] as a necessary compromise to keep Chinese Catholics united. But how is treating Chinese Catholics differently from all other Catholics in any way unifying? How does that continued separation of Chinese Catholics from the Universal Church in any way support either the Church’s mission or the spiritual welfare of ordinary Chinese?

Here’s Another Thought

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Two in a week. Settle down.

NASDAQ is (rightfully) suspicious of small-cap companies domiciled in the People’s Republic of China listing their IPOs on NASDAQ’s exchange. The one-day spikes in share prices followed quickly by nearly total collapse of those share prices in so many of the IPOs is what’s drawn attention. For instance:

Shares of more than 20 recently listed companies have risen over 100% on their first day of trading. They include Hong Kong-based fintech company AMTD Digital Inc, which briefly jumped over 320-fold after its July listing, and Chinese garment maker Addentax Group Corp, which rose more than 130-fold on its market debut in August. The two stocks have since lost more than 98% of their value.

As a result, NASDAQ has stopped approving PRC small-caps for listing, for the time being. Which brings me to my thought.

Don’t list any companies domiciled in the PRC on any American exchange, and encourage the other nations in the OECD to do the same. After all, at least since the PRC’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, those PRC companies are too closely tied to the PRC’s intelligence community, and as such, they have no legitimate business raising money through any nation’s stock or bond exchanges other than their own.

Here’s a Thought

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Take a breath. I have those once in a while.

Anyway.

The Biden administration has just sent $530 million to two (count ’em, two) companies in deep Progressive-Democratic (I won’t say “blue;” that sullies the term used to describe our State and local police forces) Massachusetts so they can make batteries for battery-powered vehicles.

Ascend Elements and 6K Inc were recipients Wednesday [19 October] of more than $530 million in federal funding through a program designed to support battery manufacturing, recycling, and material processing for the electric vehicle market.

Massachusetts Progressive-Democrat Senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Congressmen Jim McGovern and Seth Moulton all think the taxpayer money transfer is just peachy-keen.

Which brings me to my thought. The money has flowed. When the new Congressional session begins, Ascend and 6K will have had 2½ months by which to have committed at least some of that money. Of course, as serious companies, they already have had a year, or two, or more in which to plan their use of all that taxpayer money as they lobbied for it with their Massachusetts Congressional delegation.

If the Republican Party wins a majority in the House, and especially if it wins a majority in the Senate also, then by the end of January 2023, they should hale Mike O’Kronley and Andrew Aberdale, Ascend’s CEO and CFO respectively, before the relevant committees to testify, under oath, concerning the disposition of those moneys so far, and the concrete results obtained with those expenditures. The two should appear on the same day, but in separate committees, cycling through all of them separately so as to be unable to coordinate their responses in real time.

The same should be done with Aaron Bent and Gary Hall, 6K’s CEO and CFO, respectively.

Following that, House auditors to visit the two companies to audit their performance under the contracts. Such testimony and auditing subsequently should be done annually.

It’s a new concept—Congress exercising its oversight responsibility by actually monitoring private contractor performance rather than just paying lip service to the obligation—but it’s one that needs to be put into effect.

Progressive-Democratic Party Payback?

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Or is it Big Tech payback? Or both?

Recall Elon Musk’s renewed commitment to buy Twitter, and recall also his commitment to free speech and to ending Twitter’s bias and censorship.

Now the Biden administration is “reviewing” the proposal for its national security implications.

US officials have grown uncomfortable over Musk’s recent threat to stop supplying the Starlink satellite service to Ukraine—he said it had cost him $80 million so far—and what they see as his increasingly Russia-friendly stance following a series of tweets that outlined peace proposals favorable to President Vladimir Putin. They are also concerned by his plans to buy Twitter with a group of foreign investors.

Of course there was no threat to stop the Ukraine-Starlink facility; Musk only said he wasn’t sure he could continue to cover the cost alone. The Biden administration objected to the idea of no longer having that freebie.

How dare Musk propose peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. That’s President Joe Biden’s (D) and SecState Antony Blinken’s (D) job. Private citizens should just sit down and shut up.

How dare Musk put together an international consortium to buy a company with global reach? Neither Progressive-Democrats nor the Precious Ones of Twitter approve.

Need to do that “security” evaluation.

Courts and (Public) Opinion

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In a letter in Thursday’s Letters section of The Wall Street Journal, Walter Smith claims to have argu[ed] several cases personally before the Supreme Court (“claims,” because unlike many Letter writers, his signature block makes no mention of his status as a lawyer, past or present), and he expressed considerable dismay over the basis of Court decisions and subsequent Court “legitimacy.”

The court’s majority has made clear that it doesn’t care about public opinion or many of the harmful consequences of its decisions.

I have to wonder how many cases Smith won before the Supreme Court, with such a breathtaking lack of understanding of the Supreme Court’s—of any American court’s—role, an understanding any first year law student gains.

The Court’s role is not to wave to and fro with the winds of public opinion, but to rule on what the Constitution and the statute(s) before the Court say.

Full stop.

That’s why judges and Justices have lifetime appointments—deliberately to insulate them from public opinion, and from politics altogether.

But Smith wasn’t done.

As Abraham Lincoln said: “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.”

Indeed. But that was Politician Lincoln, not Judge Lincoln. If Smith doesn’t like the Court’s rulings, his beef is with the political branches of our republican government, the men and women of which wrote the laws the Court must apply.

I suggest he begin his remedial training on the American legal system by writing our Constitution’s Article I, Section 1, 100 times on his blackboard.