Tag Archives: politics

The UN’s Irrelevancy

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Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, the United Nations’ top human rights official, said US President Donald Trump’s relentless attacks on news outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS and others could be seen as incitement to violence against journalists.

And he said that with a straight face, too.  Never mind that Trump has never threatened a journalist with violence; although, journalists have questioned his sanity and called for his elimination.

Deutsche Welle‘s own piece carrying the UN statement contributes to the distortion.  Their own link demonstrates the lie of DW‘s contention.

In February, he dubbed many mainstream media outlets “enemies of the American people.”

Here’s the tweet Trump actually sent.

I understand that American English is not the primary language of the translator of either DW piece, but surely he understands the nature of noun modifiers—after all, the German language uses them, too.  FAKE NEWS clearly fills that role and thereby limits the noun media to that subset that are purveyors of fake news.

Maybe DW is becoming irrelevant along with the UN.

The VA Strikes Again, Again

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After two bills enacted into law that require the Veterans Administration to let our veterans get appointments outside the VA rather than wait interminable time periods to see a VA doctor, the problem has gotten worse.  Now there’s a wait period at the VA to get those outside appointments—because the VA must give permission for the outside appointment rather than standing and delivering.  It’s especially bad at the Shreveport, LA, VA hospital, but it’s not unique to that place.

The VA requires a referral to see an outside doctor and the process is cumbersome—a request goes back and forth several times between the VA and Tri-West, the program administrator. Part of the chain requires someone to send Tri-West the veteran’s medical history and no one is assigned to that job at [Overton Brooks VA Medical Center, the Shreveport place]….

Why there needs to be the back-and-forth between the VA and Tri-West is as much a mystery as is the requirement for VA permission to go elsewhere to get the health care the VA will not or cannot provide.

Naturally, the VA ain’t talkin’ about this.  It is being cynically evasive, though.

The VA declined several requests by Fox News to comment on why Overton Brooks had this latest wait-list and why the VA requires numerous layers of approval to create each appointment. Instead, spokeswoman Jessica Jacobsen stated, “Improving patient access to care is a priority for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). And while there are pending Care in the Community appointments for some Shreveport-area Veterans, Veterans requiring urgent care receive priority appointments.”

Weasel words.  And: on what basis, given VA failures, failure rate, and continued lack of transparency, should anyone conclude that “priority appointments” mean anything other than being bumped to first in line to be delayed?

Veteranos Administratio delende est.

The Left’s Favored Antifa

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The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page editors closed their Monday opinion piece with this remark:

The mainstream left ought to denounce it [Antifa’s censorious criminality] as much as the right should reject white supremacists.

The right does denounce white supremacists—and all bigots, not only white supremacists. We get called out by the dishonest Left and its NLMSM for not denouncing only the white supremacists.

Did I say “dishonest Left and its NLMSM?” That the Left chooses to embrace its hate groups and bigots rather than denounce them demonstrates the accuracy of the characterization.

That the Progressive-Democratic Party leadership, including in particular Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Senator Diane Feinstein (D, CA) (and the rest of the California contingent, come to that) is studiously silent on these attacks—including Sunday’s Antifa attack, which Berkeley’s police chief permitted—shows clearly where the Party stands on free speech and on freedom generally.

Update: Wednesday–three days after Antifa’s assault–House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi got around to issuing a statement that’s being masqueraded as a condemnation of Antifa:

The violent actions of people calling themselves antifa in Berkeley this weekend deserve unequivocal condemnation, and the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted.

Notice that: it’s not a condemnation of Antifa, it’s a condemnation of those “calling themselves Antifa.”  Yet the KKK, neo-Nazis, Nazi-wannabes, the NLMSM’s made-up “alt-right” are all Conservatives in her eyes, those of her cronies, and the NLMSM.

Still, her…statement…is more than others of the Progressive-Democratic Party are willing to do.  I’ve seen no statement, however weasel-worded, from House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D, MD), from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY), from Senators Diane Feinstein (D, CA), Elizabeth Warren (D, MA), or Dick Durbin (D, IL), or anyone else from the Left.

Financial Crises and Regulation

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The increasingly politicized Federal Reserve Bank is getting politicized, and its Chairman, Janet Yellen, and her Vice Chairman, Stanley Fischer, are upset over financial deregulation.

They’re…misguided.  Here’s Yellen’s plea for retaining current, irrelevant and unuseful regulations:

Already, for some, memories of this experience may be fading—memories of just how costly the financial crisis was and of why certain steps were taken in response.

Here’s her deputy’s pretense of superiority:

[O]ne can understand the political dynamics of this thing, but one cannot understand why grown, intelligent people [would] reach the conclusion that [should] get rid of all the things you have put in place in the last 10 years.

What one cannot understand is why grown, intelligent people would reach the conclusion that the age of “all the things” is a useful measure of their continued efficacy.  However, the bureaucratic turf protecting is patently clear.

We’re no longer in a national-level financial crisis; the regulations put in place to attempt to mitigate that long-expired crisis no longer are appropriate.  What is appropriate is for the Fed and that portion of its management that—properly—is apolitical to take steps to help it identify in advance the next national-level financial crisis and to identify—in top-level, general outline form—steps that would seem to be useful to reduce that crisis’ onset and to mitigate the effects of what does arise despite that reduction.

It’s important, too, for the Fed’s apolitical management team to understand that no two financial crises will be alike, and so appropriate pro- and reactive step suites will need to be unique to those crises.  The typical Government one-size-fits-all solution will be destructive, not constructive.

We don’t need a Federal Reserve Bank management team that puts its bureaucratic imperatives ahead of the national financial weal.

Sale of a Stock Exchange

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Good idea?

The Chicago Stock Exchange wants to sell itself to Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group, a Chinese conglomerate whose parent is CHX Holdings Inc.  Never mind that this would be a camel’s nose of the People’s Republic of China into our financial system and expose it to PRC hacking, disruption, theft, etc, etc, etc.

Fortunately, a collection of Congressmen persuaded the SEC to indefinitely delay the sale and purchase.  Unfortunately, the deal hasn’t been killed altogether.

Casin…says it is independent of the Chinese government.

Of course it is. In a nation that is increasing its autocratic control over its economy and the businesses in it.  Sure.

Contra such blandishments, there aren’t any businesses in the PRC that aren’t under government control, whether those businesses are owned by the government or the CPC or operate outside formal ownership: mainland Chinese businesses have government apparatchiks, “advisors,” and CPC monitors in their management staffs.

CHX…says its policies will prevent confidential data from being shared with the new Chinese owners.

And we believe them. In a nation that rules by law instead of being a nation under rule of law, a nation that changes its laws for the convenience of those persons in power, CHX would never alter—or simply ignore—”policy;” it would never steal confidential data.

Sure.

No, not a good idea.  Not this time.  Not this buyer.  Not a good idea at all.