Tag Archives: politics

Sanctions

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The People’s Republic of China said Saturday that it opposes unilateral sanctions against northern Korea over the latter’s nuclear weapons program.  Such things must have the auspices of the UN.  The PRC also said it opposes the Republic of Korea having the ability to defend itself against northern Korea’s nuclear weapons, insisting that the deployment of a missile defense system would be a threat to the PRC’s security.

This is risible.  The PRC wants sanctions to go through the UN where, via its Security Council veto power, the PRC can water down joint sanctions to the point of uselessness.  The PRC doesn’t want sanctions and it doesn’t want the RoK to be able to defend itself against nuclear attack because the PRC wants to damage the RoK as a means of damaging further a timid US.

Of course, we need to make the deployment—and to press upon the (likely) new RoK government the importance of missile defense—and we need to impose such unilateral sanctions as we can on northern Korea and to make them as broad as we can.

We need to do this for a couple of reasons.  One is to demonstrate to the PRC that they don’t get to dictate our foreign policy.  Another is to demonstrate to the RoK, to Japan, to the nations rimming the South China Sea, and to ourselves that we’re done being timid in the Pacific.

A Hack

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The Russians are alleged to be behind the hacks into the Democrats’ IT systems, and they’re alleged to have so engaged in order to sow distrust in our election system and procedures and especially to influence our just concluded election in favor of the ultimate winner, President-Elect Donald Trump.  Indeed, the CIA and other of our intelligence agencies have said that the hacks have all the earmarks of Russian hackers.

A couple things about that.  The NLMSM’s bold, declarative statements based on those intelligence agency statements that the Russians did it notwithstanding, “have all the earmarks” does not mean the Russians did it, only that it looks like they did it.  Of course getting actual proof in the intelligence or the hacking world is more difficult even than getting “proof”—sufficient reduction of reasonable doubt—in a criminal trial.  Nor does that difficulty, or the limitation of a statement of “all the earmarks,” mean the Russians didn’t do it, especially in the face of their history.

The other thing centers on the assumption that the Russians really did do the hacks and for the reasons named.  Now the NLMSM, whose favored Democrats were losers in the last election at all levels from the Presidential level on down, is pushing at the top of its collective lungs the idea that the Russians did it, and to favor Trump, as though these were facts.

So: assume the Russians really did do the hacks for the reasons named.  The NLMSM, in its temper tantrums over their loss and their having been ignored by American voters, is playing along with that Russian goal and with that serving, wittingly or not, to discredit Trump and the elections, and to sow doubt about the legitimacy of both.

Congress is pressing for bipartisan investigations into the matter, and it’s pushing for President Barack Obama to release all of the report that will result from the investigation he’s ordered into the matter.  He should, and so should President Trump if the Obama investigation isn’t complete before Trump takes office.

The question is valid, and it should be investigated and answered, but press hysteria contributes nothing to an objective resolution while sowing the doubts the press alleges the Russians want sown.

Foolishness

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Or sore, childish losers.  Or outright dishonesty.  That’s the behavior of a couple of Colorado Presidential Electors who are members, also, of the Democratic Party.  These two have filed a federal suit challenging the constitutionality of the State’s law that requires them to vote for the State’s choice in the just concluded Presidential election.  The State’s law is a winner-take-all requirement: Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won Colorado, they’re required to cast their Electoral votes for Clinton—but they’re so desperate to block President-Elect Donald Trump, they don’t want to; they want to vote for a third party candidate if they can get enough other Electoral College voters to similarly turn their coats and vote for a common third party candidate to deny Trump 270 Electoral College votes.  (Never mind that that would just move the election to the Republican House of Representatives.  Logic has never been much of a player for the Left.)

These two persons are basing their suit’s claim on Article II and the 12th Amendment of the Constitution.

Though Hillary Clinton and Timothy Kaine won the majority vote in Colorado and are qualified for office, plaintiffs cannot be constitutionally compelled to vote for them.  Plaintiffs are entitled to exercise their judgment and free will to vote for whomever they believe to be the most qualified and fit for the offices of president and vice president, whether those candidates are Democrats, Republicans or from a third-party.

And from the complaint itself:

Many states, including Colorado, require their Presidential Electors to vote consistent with the popular vote in the state. Thus, despite the plain language of Article II of the US Constitution, as amended by the Twelfth Amendment, and the Founders’ intent that the Presidential Electors be a deliberative and independent body free to cast votes for whomever they deem to be the most fit and qualified candidates, Messrs Trump and Pence—if the state statutes are enforced—may “win” the election while also losing, by historical margins, the nationwide popular vote.

Since these persons mention the plain language of Article II and the 12th, they—and their lawyers—might want actually to review that plain language.  Here’s the relevant part of Article II:

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….

All the 12th Amendment does is fix the mechanics of voting and the number of still-eligible candidates if the contest must go to the Federal House and Senate.

[I]n such Manner as the Legislature…may direct: which plainly includes for whom and under what State-wide vote outcome as a State might choose to direct.  The Electors are representatives of the State, not of themselves.  No, they are not entitled (such a popular term for the denizens of the Left [/snark]) to exercise their judgment and free will.  They are required to reflect the collective will of their State.

The suit should be tossed, and the lawyers complicit in bringing it should be sanctioned by the Federal court whose time they wasted with this cynical frivolity.

Sexism in a Court

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The singer Kesha, in a Manhattan court, is suing Sony and ex-producer “Dr Luke” over allegations of having been drugged and raped.  There are (unsubstantiated) reports that the presiding judge, Shirley Kornreich, should be removed from the case because she’s married to Proskauer Rose law firm partner Edward Kornreich, and Proskauer Rose represents Sony.

Kornreich says the move is sexist.

If it’s an issue at all, it’s an issue because women are now part of the professional work force[.]

Kornreich reveals her own sexism with that claim.  The move, if it existed beyond press reports (Kesha’s lawyers say they weren’t going to file any recusal motion), was about conflicts of interest from family ties connecting a judge to one of the litigants; it had nothing to do with the genders of the individuals who are—or might be—tied.

A Bad Deal in the Offing

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The Wall Street Journal had a piece on a potential deal concerning the FCC.

We hear Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democrat Harry Reid are negotiating for an FCC transition in which Chairman Tom Wheeler would leave in January. GOP leaders would then reconfirm two commissioners: Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel, whose five-year term has expired; and Republican Ajit Pai, who is not up until next year and is in the mix to be the next chairman.

The WSJ suitably addressed the foolishness of the overall deal.

I have a related concern.  Why deal with Senator Harry Reid (D, NV) at all?  That man is wholly untrustworthy, and besides, he’ll be gone in January.  Why deal with the Senate Democrats at all?  As a group, all they’re interested in doing is obstructing anything Republican.  Senator Tim Kaine (D, VA) has said he’d do everything he could to prevent Republicans from acting.  So has Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D, IL).  So has Senate Minority Leader-in-waiting [sic] Chuck Schumer (D, IL).  And on and on.  These folks’ word cannot be taken as reliable except as they promise to get in the way of the nation’s business for their own personal political gain.

And, courtesy of Reid’s prior dishonesty regarding the filibuster, most of the Senate’s nearby business doesn’t need these obstructionists’ participation to conclude in any event.