Tag Archives: political parties

The People’s Republic of China and Private Economies

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The government of the People’s Republic of China does not trust the people over whom it reigns. This is illustrated by its broad distrust of those folks’ private enterprise.

Xi Jinping, long distrustful of the private sector, is moving assertively to bring it to heel.

And

The government is installing more Communist Party officials inside private firms, starving some of credit and demanding executives tailor their businesses to achieve state goals.

And

The push is driven by a deepening conviction within the country’s leadership that markets and private entrepreneurs, while important to China’s rise, are unpredictable and not to be fully trusted.

Bringing the PRC into the World Trade Organization, engaging with the nation economically—even helping the nation economically—in order to enhance freedom and prosperity for the ordinary folks of the PRC was worth the try those 50 years, more or less, ago.

It’s clear now, though, and it’s been clear for some decades, that the government men of the PRC have no intention of enhancing that freedom of prosperity. Those men intend only to enhance their power domestically, to dominate neighboring nations, and to set the global world order, replacing not just us, but the West altogether.

Yet this is the PRC that Joe Biden wants us to cozy up to.

Pocket Veto

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This week, the House passed the National Defense Appropriation Act with enough votes that, if repeated, would override a Presidential veto.

President Donald Trump has said he’ll veto the bill because it doesn’t include repeal of Section 230, which confers immunity from publication-related liability on Facebook, Twitter, Alphabet, and a few others.

Now the bill goes to the Senate for passage, and then to the President.

Here’s the thing, folks. As I write this post, it’s 9 December. Congress recesses at COB 18 December.

If Congress doesn’t extend its session and not go on recess as currently scheduled, the President can simply not sign the bill into law, and it’ll be pocket vetoed with no opportunity for an override vote in each house.

Here’s what Article I, Section 7 of our Constitution has to say on Presidential vetoes [emphasis added]:

If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

We’re already inside those 10 days.

Legal in LA

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Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has decided to pick and choose the laws he’ll work to enforce and the crimes he’ll explicitly excuse. Here’s the Directive Gascon issued to the County Prosecutors. This is the opening of his Section I, Declination of Policy Directive [emphasis in the original]:

The misdemeanor charges specified below shall be declined or dismissed before arraignment and without conditions unless “exceptions” or “factors for consideration” exist.
These charges do not constitute an exhaustive list

Here are the high points of Gascón’s non-exhaustive list:

  • Trespass
  • Disturbing The Peace
  • Driving Without A Valid License
  • Driving On A Suspended License
  • Criminal Threats
  • Resisting Arrest

Here’s what Angelenos are going to face/have to do as a result of Gascón’s legal negligence:

  • deal with trespassers their way rather than wasting precious minutes calling the cops.
  • auto insurance claims are going to skyrocket, and then so will premiums, from letting anyone, under any circumstance or skill, drive and endanger everyone else, pedestrian and motorist.
  • police will be at increased risk—at least those remaining before he abolishes them—from resisters.

This. Is. California.

 

H/t Bill Melugan, investigative correspondent for FOX 11 Los Angeles.

Mistaken

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Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp and Lt Governor Geoff Duncan are refusing to convene a special session of the State’s General Assembly for the purpose of generating a legislative slate of Presidential electors in lieu of that nominally generated by the Georgia voters and an unknown number of illegitimate voters. Kemp and Duncan are grasping at straws, too, for their rational.

While we understand four members of the Georgia Senate are requesting the convening of a special session of the General Assembly, doing this in order to select a separate slate of presidential electors is not an option that is allowed under state or federal law.

This is where Kemp and Duncan are mistaken under the supreme Law of the Land, our Constitution. Here’s Art II, Sect 1:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress….

The General Assembly is well within Constitutional bounds to pick its own set of Electors. Furthermore, the State being the sole selector of Electors, there then can be no conflicting slates of Electors for a sitting Vice President to choose between. The selections are who the State says it is, whether is specifies those selected by the voters or those selected by the General Assembly.

The matter of such an act being contrary to State law is purely a non sequitur. States are allowed to change their laws; none of them are written in adamantine once enacted.

The political cost of the General Assembly appointing its own lot of Electors is a separate matter.