Once Again, a State Court Fails

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The Wyoming Supreme Court has struck down the State’s ban on abortion pills. Whether or not abortion pills are reasonable or safe or ought to be banned or not, the Court’s “reasoning” is deficient.

The court found that the state “failed to prove the 2023 laws were ‘reasonable and necessary restrictions’ on the right to make one’s own health care decisions.”

In so ruling, the court in the main relied on the Wyoming Constitution‘s Article 1, Section 38, which says,

a) Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions. The parent, guardian or legal representative of any other natural person shall have the right to make health care decisions for that person.
(b) Any person may pay, and a health care provider may accept, direct payment for health care without imposition of penalties or fines for doing so.
(c) The legislature may determine reasonable and necessary restrictions on the rights granted under this section to protect the health and general welfare of the people or to accomplish the other purposes set forth in the Wyoming Constitution.
(d) The state of Wyoming shall act to preserve these rights from undue governmental infringement.

At that point, they stopped their thinking, though. They chose not to consider the baby’s intrinsic right to its own health—its own life. That the State’s constitution is silent on the baby’s right to life should not be allowed to free up judges, even State Supreme Court Justices, to rule as they wish. Where the law is silent on a matter, no court should be ruling on the matter since by entering that silence it is unavoidably making law in its own name, and that is the sole province of the political arms, the arms elected by the people, to do.

Justice Jo Gray implied as much when, in her dissent, she used to same Article and Section to argue the definition of “reasonable and necessary restrictions” is too vague and so the matter should have been returned to the legislature for clarification. Sadly, Gray also chose to elide any consideration of the baby’s welfare, also.

The court’s ruling can be read here.

Violations of International Law

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors rightly ask the question.

Has international law become a tyrant’s best friend? Democrats and foreign leaders are claiming that President Trump’s arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is illegal—at least as international law is interpreted by the reigning complex of professors, NGOs, and multilateral bureaucrats.

Never mind that none of these nay-sayers—not a single one—are willing to cite the “international law” that the US violated in the arrest of Maduro and his wife. The closest they come is the single UN law, which as no applicability to the current situation, as the editors explain in words so plain that even Leftists should be able to understand them.

I expect such cynicism and dishonest out of our enemies and our fair weather friends and acquaintances. But to get this drivel from American politicians—in the main, Progressive-Democratic Party politicians—is decidedly shameful. This sub rosa hatred of America by those who claim to be our own should be remembered at the ballot box this fall.

A Quick Thought on Tariffs

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The lede sets the table for my thought, even while mixing similes or metaphors or somethings.

The highest tariffs in almost a century haven’t caused the massive surge in inflation many economists feared. But that shouldn’t have come as a surprise, according to two new studies.

Begin with the understanding that today’s economy, both domestic and as we interact and intertwine with other nations’ economies, is far more complex than it was during the 19th and early 20th century heydays of tariffs.

Within that understanding, we don’t know the lags, if any, between tariff implementation and domestic price increases. That’s true whether the tariffs are implemented in specific economic areas or across the domestic board. Nor do we understand the mechanisms by which tariffs on foreign goods and services have their effect on domestic goods and services or on our economy in general. Nor do we understand the pathways by which those mechanisms might work their effects.

Each of these must be determined empirically, and that takes time. Presently, we’re in a nation-wide experiment that will provide the data that will let us understand each of these unknowns.

For how long must this experiment run before we can say reasonably definitively that tariffs are not having more than a minor effect on prices? That’s also unknown, but I suspect an outer bound on that is a couple of years.

Disruptive in the near term the Trump tariffs—or at least his rhetoric about them—might seem to be, it’s much to soon to assess their disruptiveness or lack in the intermediate and longer terms.

This Says It All

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Minnesota’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Tim Walz has said he’ll not seek reelection as Minnesota’s governor. His rationale for that decision is both instructive of his priorities and illustrative of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s priorities.

As I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all.
Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences.

“His own political interests.” Not the interests or weal of the good citizens of Minnesota. He puts his own political interests on a par with “defending the people of Minnesota,” when that should have been his first and only focus. No, it’s all about his political gain, and beyond that, the political gain of Party. Not the interests or weal of us average Americans in general, either.

And never mind the years of time he spent not defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity, as demonstrated by the breadth, depth, and duration of the multi-billion dollar (and growing) social services fraud that’s engulfed his State during his first two terms while he worried first and primarily about his own political interests.

Unfortunately, much more house cleaning is necessary in the Party-run Governor’s Mansion and State Senate than just the removal of Walz. This affaire is much too large for him to have been acting, or even merely derelict, alone.

Time to Respond…

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…more forcefully and farther than what the People’s Republic of China has done.

China said it banned the export to Japan of goods with potential military uses, intensifying Beijing’s retaliation against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi over remarks she made about Taiwan.
The export ban takes effect immediately, China’s Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday.

It’s time for Japan, and the US in support of Japan, to answer the PRC’s escalation with a much sharper escalation of their, and our, own.

Japan—Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and the Diet—must state unequivocally that it will support the Republic of China in the event of a PRC invasion attempt. Japan also must make concrete moves toward developing its own nuclear weapons. The nation, given its geographic location, doesn’t need anything more esoteric than intermediate range missiles along with a small constellation of surveillance satellites. Japan also must begin taking overt defensive measures regarding its islands in the East China Sea.

Economically, Japan must begin serious and rapid disengagement of its business activities with and within the PRC.

The US must announce that we will support the RoC in the event of a PRC invasion attempt, and we must step up arms deliveries to both the RoC and to Japan. We need also to be much more forceful in defending the international waters and sea lanes of commerce in the South China Sea as well as moving to restrict the PLAN’s and PLAAF’s movements in that region.

The US must also get serious about severing our economic ties with the PRC.

There must be no petty tit-for-tat responses, and there must be no non-response. The question is whether Japan’s government men and women, and ours, have the stomach for facing down the men and women of the PRC government.

Cutting off doing business with and within the PRC will be expensive and disruptive, but it won’t be nearly as much so as acceding to PRC demands—which will only increase were Japan or us to back down repeatedly and further.