Tag Archives: politics

PRC Economic Opening

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Liu He, head of the People’s Republic of China’s Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs, says,

We’ll open wider to the world across the board[.]

Liu promised that the PRC would

  • “substantially” open up the services industry, particularly the financial sector
  • let foreign securities firms own majority stakes in their Chinese ventures and…scrap foreign ownership limits on Chinese banks
  • reiterated past promises to relax restrictions on foreign companies in manufacturing, including in railway equipment, and to gradually lower tariffs on imported products such as automobiles

Even if they do these things (and that’s no certain thing: notice those past, unkept, promises), Liu’s—and Xi’s—rhetoric is just wind in the trees as long as the PRC demands that

  • foreign companies partner with domestic companies as a condition of doing business in the PRC
  • foreign companies are required to “share” technology and other intellectual property
  • foreign companies are required to give backdoors to the PRC government for the latter’s entry into those companies’ critical software and other proprietary information.

This not only is “legalized” theft, it’s backdoor protectionism.

Federal Funds Redistributions

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The Department of Justice says it’s going to issue subpoenas, if necessary, to get sanctuary-related documents from cities who have proclaimed themselves sanctuary cities.  Sarah Isgur Flores, DoJ Public Affairs Director:

These are the jurisdictions that have politicians that release criminal aliens back onto the street.

In conjunction with that, she says that, if further necessary, DoJ will redirect Byrne Grant* funds to other jurisdictions that actively support law enforcement rather than picking and choosing those laws that are convenient to them and ignoring others.

Strange bedfellows: this sort of thing should get the Progressive-Democrats fronting for sanctuary jurisdictions on board with many of us Conservatives working to end Federal funds redistribution of one State’s citizens’ tax monies to another State’s government.  That would reduce the ability of the Federal government to push around any of the States on domestic matters.

 

*Byrne Grant: Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, a major source of funding for state and local (and tribal) jurisdictions in their fight against crime.  Ironically, it’s named for NYPD Officer Edward Byrne, who was killed 40 years ago protecting an immigrant witness who was to testify against drug dealers.  Two things that sound mighty familiar today.

It’s Somebody Else’s Fault

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Recall the 50,000 “missing” FBI text messages between FBI agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok that just by coincidence happen to have been exchanged in the most critical period of interest to Congressional investigations.

It turns out that not only has the FBI “lost” these emails, they tried to cover it up [emphasis added].

[A] pair of Republican senators [Senators Ron Johnson (R, WI) and Chuck Grassley (R, IA)] pressed the Justice Department’s watchdog [Inspector General Michael Horowitz] to explain why he did not inform them last month that the FBI “failed to preserve” five months of text messages between Strzok and Page.

It gets better: the FBI now is claiming that

the Samsung 5 mobile phones it provided to employees “did not capture or store text messages due to misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI’s collection capabilities.”

Right.  That must be it.  On the other hand, there’s still that beachfront property north of Santa Fe….

No, this smacks of evidence tampering to me.  Especially since what those emails might have shed some light on concerned things exposed by the emails that have been turned over, things like FBI agents’ “secret society” and the “secret meetings off-site” that they were holding, and the “back up plan” and “insurance” that Strzok and Page in particular seem to have been hatching.

Or, it really is all Samsung’s fault; their bug must have been produced while writing software in the distracting environment north of Santa Fe.

A Tool

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Facebook’s management is beginning to realize the impact Facebook can have on our national society and on the politics of our society.  Product Manager Samidh Chakrabarti:

If there’s one fundamental truth about social media’s impact on democracy it’s that it amplifies human intent—both good and bad[.]

But in their hubris that same management is presuming to dictate to us how we will be allowed to use it.

[W]e have a moral duty to understand how these technologies are being used and what can be done to make communities like Facebook as representative, civil, and trustworthy as possible.

No.  Facebook technology is like any other tool, neither good nor bad in itself, but useful or destructive in from the way it’s used.  Like any large power tool, it certainly can be dangerous—but it’s on us to use it correctly and safely.

It’s certainly not on producers of technology, including of tools like Facebook (or Twitter, come to that, or Instragram, or Snapchat, or…), to take it on themselves to censor what they provide or omit.  That’s the responsibility of us as individuals.  Facebook’s management team has a responsibility to publish a serious, honest owner’s manual—just like Black & Decker has a responsibility to publish a serious, honest owner’s manual for its chainsaws.  But Black & Decker only has a responsibility vis-à-vis its saws to make them effective and safe.  Facebook management has the same responsibility—neither more nor less—to do the same with the tool known as Facebook.

It’s time they stopped condescending.  It’s time they stopped presuming to manage our outcomes for us.

Hypocrisy

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…is alive and well in the National Football League.  The NFL invited American Veterans, a major veterans support organization, to submit an ad for the Super Bowl advertising suite.  So AMVET did.

It turns out the NFL just wanted to look good in the public shower; it wasn’t at all serious.  Having received AMVET’s submission, they chose to reject it.  The ad committed the heinous crime of asking folks to stand for the national anthem.  The NFL’s excuse?  The Super Bowl is

designed for fans to commemorate and celebrate the game, players, teams, and the Super Bowl…

it’s not a place for political statements.  But NFL allows football players to insult our veterans and attack our national anthem, including planned kneelings at the upcoming Super Bowl.  That’s not a political statement, though.

Consider this carefully as you decide whether you want to watch what used to be a great game.  Consider, also, whether you want to drop a dime, next year, on the NFL, given its support for its players’ attacks on our national anthem and their insults to generations of our veterans.