Tag Archives: political parties

Maybe End a Boycott?

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San Francisco is beginning to contemplate ending its travel ban to States of which the city’s governing Council disapproves because those States hold values that are too conservative to suit the Councilmen.

The move was largely seen as a boycott to pressure other states and prevent the city from engaging in business with those whose values it deemed antithetical to its own.

City Administrator Carmen Chu issued a report that suggests a negative outcome of the city’s move.

No states with restrictive LGBTQ rights, voting rights, or abortion policies have cited the City’s travel and contract bans as motivation for reforming their laws.

And especially [emphasis added],

Since 12X [the banning ordinance] became operative, the number of banned states has grown from 8 states in 2017 to 30 in 2022. This increase suggests that the City’s threat of boycott may not serve as a compelling deterrent to states considering restrictive policies. Only 1 state has ever been removed from the list.

Ya think?

However.

Even if San Francisco does lift its boycott, I still won’t travel to that city. The crime rate remains shockingly high, the threats of harassment and of assault by the homeless remains rampant on the city’s sidewalks, drug use and the threat of drug infections—even from the used drug needles lying about on those same sidewalks—remains too widespread, the vast piles of human and other animal feces on those same sidewalks remains too thick; the risks go on and on.

Further, San Francisco’s mayor and city council, despite all of that, continue to disparage the police and limit their ability to function.

San Francisco remains not worth the trouble of traveling to, much less doing business in or with.

Moderately Stern Letter to Follow

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken claims he wagged his finger very sternly warned his Chinese counterpart against providing Russia with “lethal support” in the invasion of Ukraine and he made it very clear that China must never violate US airspace again.

Blinken told CBS News‘ Face the Nation in an interview aired Sunday that he sent a strong message to Chinese Communist Party Central Foreign Affairs Office Director Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
“I made very clear to him that China sending a surveillance balloon over the United States, in violation of our sovereignty, in violation of international law, was unacceptable, and must never happen again[.]”

And this from State’s UN Ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to CNN:

If there are any thoughts and efforts by the Chinese and others to provide lethal support to the Russians in their brutal attack against Ukraine, that is unacceptable[.]

Sure. The PRC will back right down in the face of face-saving words from the man who so meekly accepted his a**-chewing at his first meeting with his…counterparts (the ellipsis because it’s mildly insulting to lower the PRC’s foreign ministers to the weak levels of our State Department) or from any of his subordinates.

“Common Sense”

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The Progressive-Democratic Party is attempting to use its Newspeak Dictionary to redefine “Nonsense” as “Common sense.” The latest example of this is President Joe Biden’s (D) latest call for “common sense” gun reforms. He made his latest demand in response to a series of murders with guns in Mississippi. In that series, the murderer used a shotgun and two handguns to murder six people across three locations in his single rampage. Biden’s demand:

That includes requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, fully closing the boyfriend loophole to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, requiring safe storage of guns, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.

Because any of that, like banning mythical devices—assault weapons and weapons of war on our streets—would have kept shotguns or handguns away from this murderer, or any other. And surely “high capacity magazines,” of whatever definition that becomes convenient from time to time to an overreaching government, would have kept shotguns and handguns away from criminals.

Holding gun manufacturers liable for the abuses of their products by criminals will only limit the availability of firearms to us honest ­average Americans. Oh, wait: that’s the goal of Party. Party members know full well that laws are ignored by criminals; that’s at the core of what makes them criminals.

Nonsense is common sense to Party. And Party expects us meekly to accept that. Or else.

Christine Wilson’s Weak Apologia

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Soon to be ex-Federal Trade Commissioner Christine Wilson issued her “explanation” for quitting her post as FTC Commissioner. Her lengthy rationalization of her decision to walk away from her responsibilities as FTC Commissioner aggregated to as a minority member of a Left-dominated Commission, she was unable to get the FTC Chairwoman to change her ways.

This is how the Left wins. Putative Conservatives turn tail and run when things get tough, cutting and running especially during a time when the erstwhile Conservative chair will be sat in by a Progressive replacement.

I have failed repeatedly to persuade Ms Khan and her enablers to do the right thing, and I refuse to give their endeavor any further hint of legitimacy by remaining. Accordingly, I will soon resign as an FTC commissioner.

Any excuse to run away. Staying on would give legitimacy only if she meekly acceded to Khan’s misbehaviors. If she kept the fight going, even if losing the fight, she would be lending no legitimacy to Khan; on the contrary, she would be highlighting Khan’s misbehaviors. But it’s just personally easier to…quit.

Caveat Emptor

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In a Wall Street Journal editorial centered on the rule-making moves by the Biden administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Trade Commission to cap or to outright ban so-called junk fees, there’s this tidbit offered in all seriousness by the FTC’s Lina Khan (the WSJ didn’t directly attribute this to her, but she’s the FTC’s Chair, so the tidbit wasn’t offered without her prior permission):

Consumers who select and travel to dealerships based on an advertised offer, only to learn late in the process (if at all) that the advertised offer does not apply, have often spent hours trying to purchase a car[.]

This, of course, is nonsense. Every car maker in the US, from “ordinary” car makers and dealers to luxury car makers and dealers, offer on their Web sites options to “build your car” for every model on offer, and the build options present every option available to the model along with the effect of option’s inclusion or removal on the car’s final price. Consumers who select and travel to dealerships, even if the selection is originally based on an advertised offer, will have already built their going-in preferred model and have their eyes wide-open to counteroffers and to other options offered or no longer available—together with their costs and savings identified during those discussions.

These proposed rules are nothing more than Government attempting to dictate to businesses how they must operate and to us average Americans what we will be permitted to buy. And that’s not just the exampled car-buying, it’s how this government wants to control how we do our banking, our investing, how we and our businesses in general operate in an economy.

Maybe it’s not caveat emptor. Maybe it’s cave imperium that we should operate under.