Tag Archives: regulation

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things—Yet

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Senator Tim Scott’s (R, SC) bill that would have led to a measure of reform for our State and local police departments went down in flames at the hands of Senate Progressive-Democrats. The blocked an end to their filibuster of the bill; they refused even to let the bill come to the floor of the Senate for open debate and amendment—including their own amendments.

Their rationalization? It didn’t go far enough. So, instead of taking a compromise that moved in their direction, they blocked everything. They refused even to permit talk about it.

Progressive-Democrat contempt for us citizens isn’t confined to the Senate.

Here’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) in an interview with a CBS Radio reporter.

So, when they [Republicans]…have some suggestions that are worthy of consideration—but so far they were trying to get away with murder, actually—the murder of George Floyd.

Pelosi’s contemptuous dismissal of the concerns of Republicans in the House and the Senate Progressive-Democrats’ similar dismissal are of a piece with Progressive-Democrats’ general dismissal of all of us ordinary Americans, Americans in flyover country, Americans bitterly clinging to our Bibles and our guns, Americans who “are just no good” and irredeemable and deplorable.

Progressive-Democrats don’t consider our concerns worthy of notice, and so they will not debate, much less negotiate, in any serious fashion.

Too, Party doesn’t want any sort of solution to a problem; its members only want the problem alive and kicking for their personal political gain.

Remember this in November.

Police Training

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“We also have to fundamentally change the way police are trained.”  This is what Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden is saying now.  He went on:

And the idea of standing there and teaching a cop and an unarmed person comin’ at him with knife and gonna shoot him in the leg instead of the heart is a very different thing.

Never mind that a person with a knife is not at all unarmed. Never mind that the reason police are taught that when they must shoot—and as a last resort, mind you (for all that there is the very occasional bad cop)—they must aim for center of mass so as not to miss altogether, and they must take care for the people and property that may be beyond the person at whom they’re shooting. Never mind that legs are much smaller targets and much more rapidly moving.

Keep in mind, too, that this is the same Joe Biden whose home defense advice is to shoot a shotgun through a closed door, without regard for target identification.

I won’t get into how out of breath Biden sounded or the general level of coherence that seems lacking in the minute-and-a-half clip.  Just attend to that bit about police training.

This is the incoherence the Progressive-Democratic Party wants to put into the White House.

Keep a close eye on who they choose for his Vice President candidate, and then think about the 25th Amendment.

A Judge Makes a Clear Ruling

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It’s “only” a Temporary Restraining Order by a county judge—Clay County, Illinois, Judge Michael McHaney—but the judge’s ruling is clear, plain spoken, and he speaks for Americans all across these United States.

Since the inception of this insanity, the following regulations, rules or consequences have occurred: I won’t get COVID if I get an abortion but I will get COVID if I get a colonoscopy. Selling pot is essential but selling goods and services at a family- owned business is not. Pot wasn’t even legal and pot dispensaries didn’t even exist in this state until five months ago and, in that five months, they have become essential but a family-owned business in existence for five generations is not.
A family of six can pile in their car and drive to Carlyle Lake without contracting COVID but, if they all get in the same boat, they will. We are told that kids rarely contract the virus and sunlight kills it, but summer youth programs, sports programs are cancelled. Four people can drive to the golf course and not get COVID but, if they play in a foursome, they will. If I go to Walmart, I won’t get COVID but, if I go to church, I will. Murderers are released from custody while small business owners are threatened with arrest if they have the audacity to attempt to feed their families.
These are just a few of examples of rules, regulations and consequences that are arbitrary, capricious, and completely devoid of anything even remotely approaching common sense.
State’s attorneys in this state, county sheriffs, mayors, city councils and county boards have openly and publicly defied these orders followed by threats to withhold funding and revocation of necessary licenses and certifications unless you obey.
Our economy is shut down because of a flu virus with a 98 percent plus survival rate. Doctors and experts say different things weekly. The defendant cites models in his opposition. The only thing experts will agree on is that all models are wrong and some are useful. The Centers for Disease Control now says the virus is not easily spread on surfaces.
The defendant in this case orders you to stay home and pronounces that, if you leave the state, you are putting people in danger, but his family members traveled to Florida and Wisconsin because he deems such travel essential. One initial rationale why the rules don’t apply to him is that his family farm had animals that needed fed. Try selling that argument to farmers who have had to slaughter their herds because of disruption in the supply chain.
When laws do not apply to those who make them, people are not being governed, they are being ruled. Make no mistake, these executive orders are not laws. They are royal decrees. Illinois citizens are not being governed, they are being ruled. The last time I checked Illinois citizens are also Americans and Americans don’t get ruled. The last time a monarch tried to rule Americans, a shot was fired that was heard around the world. That day led to the birth of a nation consensually governed based upon a document which ensures that on this day in this, any American courtroom tyrannical despotism will always lose and liberty, freedom and the constitution will always win.

The TRO was granted in favor of the plaintiff against the defendant, JB Pritzker, in his capacity of Governor of Illinois on two of three counts.

New York’s Nursing Home Intakes

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You may recall that New York’s Progressive-Democrat Governor, Andrew Cuomo, ordered all New York nursing homes to accept into their midst folks who were “recovering” from, but not yet cleared of, their Wuhan Virus infections and folks who might only have been exposed to the virus.

Nursing homes house the demographic most vulnerable to the virus: the aged, many of whom also have the most virulent comorbidities.  Residents, within days, began dying of the Wuhan Virus to the extent that their deaths alone make up a significant fraction—roughly a sixth—of all the Wuhan Virus deaths in a State that has the nation’s highest number of such deaths.

Of course, Cuomo is trying to weasel out from under his disastrous order, having rescinded it only after a couple of months of dead and dying. He’s blaming the whole thing on President Donald Trump and his administration’s medical experts. Cuomo, after all, was only

following guidelines issued by the Trump administration.
The guidance [Cuomo] says [is] “nursing homes should admit any individuals that they would normally admit to their facility, including individuals from hospitals where a case of COVID-19 was/is present.”

Here’s his secretary and top aid, Melissa DeRosa, last Saturday:

Not could. Should. That is President Trump’s CMS and CDC…There are over a dozen states that did the exact same thing.

That’s a cynical and dishonest quibble. “Should” is just a strong version of “could;” neither remotely amounts to “required.”

Beyond that, DeRosa carefully omitted to mention that there also were a number of States who did not require nursing homes and the like to take Wuhan Virus-infected or -exposed patients, and none of those States’ equivalent facilities have had anything like the death rates of New York’s nursing homes.

Cuomo and DeRosa just as carefully continue to omit to mention that CMS and CDC also mandated separation/isolation criteria for the Wuhan Virus patient intake, or that these were not well followed in New York.

Long Overdue

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The People’s Republic of China has been able to raise billions of dollars for its various business outlets by listing them on American stock exchanges—all while being exempt from the same public visibility and auditing requirements that other nations’ companies and our domestic ones must satisfy on our exchanges.

Maybe that’s changing.

Legislation passed by the Senate—and now introduced in the House—would kick Chinese companies off US stock exchanges unless their audits are inspected by US regulators.

And

The Senate legislation requires the Chinese companies with shares traded here to disclose to the Securities and Exchange Commission whether they are owned or controlled by state authorities.

This, though, would mean that all of them would have to admit disclose that they are controlled by state authorities. A 2017 intelligence law enacted by the PRC government requires all PRC companies to “cooperate” with intelligence requests of agencies of that government.

Now we have:

China says sharing audit work papers would violate its sovereignty and risk leaking state secrets.

There’s an effect of that 2017 law.

Michaels and Otani, at the first link, think that

economic tension between the two global superpowers, amplified by political outrage in the US over China’s role in the spread of the new coronavirus

are pushing this new emphasis. Emphasis maybe, but neither the economic war (now relabeled Cold War by the PRC) that the PRC has been inflicting on us for years nor the current Wuhan Virus situation and the PRC’s perfidy in the virus’ spread have anything to do with the substance of this. The secretiveness of the PRC’s outlets listed on our exchanges has been extant since they first were listed, and that’s what needs correction.

It’s enough that we gave the PRC Most Favored Nation status (mistakenly, in 20-20 hindsight). There’s nothing that warrants PRC companies on our exchanges being treated any differently than any other company—domestic or foreign—on our exchanges.

PRC companies need, badly, to be audited, and tossed from our exchanges at the slightest hesitation to be audited and for the same violations, should they be audited and any violations found, as any other company whose violations warrant expulsion.

This is especially important given that the PRC isn’t just any foreign nation; it’s an enemy of the United States. American dollars shouldn’t be involved in funding PRC companies.