What He Said

Posted on by
Reply

Mississippi’s Republican governor, Tate Reeves, had a few words to say in response to Vermont’s nominally Independent Senator, Bernie Sanders, the latter whom wants a moratorium on building data centers to support AI development or any other uses. Reeves’ words, though, have much broader implication, and I’ve repeated them below in their entirety.

I understand individuals who would rather not have any industrial project in their backyard. We all choose where to live, whether it’s urban, suburban, agrarian, or industrial. I do not understand the impulse to prevent our country from advancing technologically—except as civilizational suicide.
This instinct seems to infect the far left across lots of domains: immigration, crime fighting, and the national debt to name a few. You can tell they’re just sort of yearning to submit our society to outside forces: mobs, international councils, or communist China. Maybe they’re exhausted and just want a few years of taxpayer-funded rest before they shuffle off.
I don’t want to go gently. I love this country, and want her to rise. That’s why Mississippi has become the home of the world’s most impressive supercomputers. We are committed to America and American power. We know that being the hub of the world’s most awesome technology will inevitably bring prosperity and authority to our state. There is nobody better than Mississippians to wield it.
I am tempted to sit back and let other states fritter away the generational chance to build. To laugh at their short-sightedness. But the best path for all of us would be to see America dominate, because our foes are not like us. They don’t believe in order, except brutal order under their heels. They don’t believe in prosperity, except for that gained through fraud and plunder. They don’t think or act in a way I can respect as an American.
So, let’s see Americans (and Mississippians) dominate this space—no matter how many leftists want us to roll over and die instead.

That last is especially important; I’ll say it again:

So, let’s see Americans (and Mississippians) dominate this space—no matter how many leftists want us to roll over and die instead.

It Isn’t Enough

Posted on by
Reply

DoJ has filed suit against UCLA over the school’s overt antisemitic bigotry in the immediate and ensuing aftermath of Hamas’ atrocities inflicted on Israel 7 October 2023 and subsequently.

The school “engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against Jewish and Israeli employees at UCLA…by failing to prevent and correct antisemitic workplace discrimination,” the complaint says. For all the incidents of anti-Jewish harassment, “not a single student, staff member, or faculty member was…formally disciplined for antisemitic behavior—including those who were arrested for illegal conduct.”

UCLA has lied about cleaning up its act:

UCLA said in a statement that the school had “taken concrete and significant steps to strengthen campus safety, enforce policies and combat antisemitism.”

The lie is demonstrated:

UCLA didn’t discipline or expel students for behavior that crossed into threats and harassment.

DoJ’s suit “asks,” according to the WSJ,

the school to stop tolerating a hostile work environment based on race, religion, and national origin.

If that’s an accurate summation and the extent of the call, it’s badly deficient. The personnel who perpetrated this bigotries would seem to remain in place. Any words they might fall past their lips or out of their keyboards claiming to stop such misbehaviors cannot be trusted given their empirically demonstrated bigotry. As part of any outcome of the suit—and there should be no settlement—these personnel must be fired for cause and any educator licenses they might possess be revoked with prejudice. Any students involved who are still present must be expelled with prejudice, and any since graduated must have their degrees rescinded, also with prejudice.

An Alternative Move

Posted on by
Reply

Vice President JD Vance (R), in his new capacity as leader of President Donald Trump’s (R) newly formed anti-fraud facility, has paused transfer of some $260 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota until that State begins to do a better job of accounting for how it spends those American taxpayer dollars. Minnesota’s Progressive-Democrat governor, Tim Walz, promptly claimed that Vance’s move was nothing more than a

campaign of retribution. Trump is weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota. These cuts will be devastating for veterans, families with young kids, folks with disabilities, and working people across our state.

There is a valid concern buried under Walz’ manufactured hysteria—the loss of financial support for the groups of Americans he named. As Vance noted,

Vance…recalled his own experience growing up depending on government programs and said the money should be there for people and children who need it. “It’s disgraceful that fraudsters out there are taking advantage of programs like Medicaid[.]”

There is an alternative solution to a blanket cutoff, however temporary. Who the individuals are in those groups about whom Walz so piously pretends to care is known to the Federal government. Those $260 million should be sent directly to those individuals, entirely bypassing the State and the third parties Walz’ administration uses to distribute and funnel the money.

The shift would go a long way toward reducing the corruption in the State’s Medicaid facility by bypassing it entirely. Remaining fraud would be limited to the Federal government’s distribution facility, and that, as a one-time affair, would be minimal. The Trump I administration’s distribution of a one-time followed by a smaller one-time distribution of Wuhan Virus shutdown funds to American taxpayers shows the way.

At Whose Cost?

Posted on by
Reply

The Federal courts, in the person of Judge Robert Conrad in his capacity as Director of the Administrative Office of the US Courts, wants that office to take control of and responsibility for the physical Federal courthouses around the nation.

This request is a long-standing Judicial Conference position, originally adopted in 1989, and reaffirmed again in 2006. This position is being sought now because the condition of many buildings housing the Judiciary has reached a crisis point after decades of inadequate management and oversight.
This has led to over $8 billion worth of delinquent infrastructure repairs that have created risks to safety, security, and court operations. The recent unilateral actions and reorganization of GSA have only exacerbated these conditions[.]

Whether that last is accurate is a separate question. It’s nevertheless a valid beef, but my questions here are these: who will produce those $8 billion, the AOUSC through some sort of fee structure (levied on whom), some sort of GSA-/Congressional-mandated fee structure (levied on whom)? A line item in one of Congress’ appropriation bills? Something else?

Next, is this a one-time fund, or is it ongoing? At what sustainment level?

Then, who will administer the fund, whether it’s one-time or ongoing? Will this be an AOUSC function, or will it be GSA, Congressional, …?

Finally, who will let, agree, and administer the upgrade/maintenance contracts? Again, would this fall to the AOUSC, to GSA, to someone else?

In Which the Judge is Wrong on Principle

Posted on by
Reply

Even if he might be correct in a strictly legal sense (which does constrain him via his oath of office). Magistrate Judge William Porter has ruled that DoJ may not search the electronic devices seized from Washington Post news writer Hannah Natanson. Porter claimed, as paraphrased by Just the News

seizing Natanson’s devices the department took her work product, documentary material, and access to the confidential sources—”all the tools she needs as a working journalist.”

The underlying case centers on Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, an IT employee of a government contractor, supposedly removing classified information and passing that information to Natanson.

This is Porter claiming that received stolen property is legitimately a news writer’s “work product.”

For anyone outside the journalism guild, receiving stolen property is a serious felony. It’s long past time to end this criminal carveout for news writers and the news outlets that employ them. Stolen property is precisely that, not more and not less, no matter who gets it.