Tag Archives: responsibilities

Progressive-Democrats for Child Abuse

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The lede has it.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is pouring $15 million into new sex change initiatives for children and adults, framing the taxpayer-funded move as a defense against the federal government.

It’s bad enough, some of that money being spent on grown adults making their own decisions about their bodies and their lifestyles, but why are taxpayer dollars being donated to this?

It’s completely despicable, though, that one red cent is being spent to mutilate children with these procedures that are irreversible, cause severe long-term physiological and emotional damage, and are done from decisions made by children who are wholly incapable of such decisions or by adults acceding to these children’s wants.

What’s almost as bad, though, is that no one in Progressive-Democratic Party leadership, no one in Party establishment—no mainstream member at all—is speaking against this government-sponsored mutilation of badly confused children. This is what Party will inflict on all of our children if this calculated tragedy is allowed to spread beyond New York City.

Confidential

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A fifteen-year-old boy who sued YouTube, Alphabet‘s Google-owned company over YouTube‘s alleged causing [of] mental health harms to children via its also alleged by-design addictive nature, has settled his lawsuit rather than insisting on going to trial. The terms of the settlement are…confidential.

Of course, the boy’s lawyers are taking a victory lap.

YouTube‘s decision to resolve this case before having to face a jury speaks for itself.

On the other hand, José Castañeda, a Policy Communications Manager (III) at Google, speaking on behalf of YouTube and the settlement

said in a statement to FOX Business that the lawsuit had been amicably resolved.

Naturally, the lawyers for both sides would paint the outcome as favorable for their own client. The losers in such an outcome, though, are the public, other children in the boy’s claimed strait, and the boy himself.

By concealing the outcome, it’s impossible for the public—those other children, especially—to know whether YouTube is being suitably punished or the boy’s beef is bogus. That’s all carefully hidden. The concealment reduces a suit and the associated publicity to nothing more than virtue-signaling.

I’m spring-loaded against keeping settlements of civil lawsuits, which themselves are public affairs, hidden away from the public. If the plaintiff(s) aren’t confident of the legitimacy of their plaint, they ought not bring the case in the first place. If they are confident, they should push the pace and go to trial.

There is a Solution

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Crystal FitzSimons, Food Research & Action Center President, is worried that reduced participation in SNAP is not an indication of reduced need for assistance.

[T]the law’s stricter time limits, administrative hurdles, and pending cost-shift to states, along with inadequate benefits, are pushing eligible households off the program.

She correctly outlined the benefits of SNAP (which, I claim, generalize to welfare programs in general):

When investments are made in SNAP, real progress is made toward lifting people out of poverty. …
When SNAP benefits better align with increasing food costs, more families stay above the poverty line. When barriers increase, the opposite happens.

But she proposed the wrong solution.

Through legislation, Congress should ensure that everyone has the nutrition they need to thrive rather than make it harder for families to put food on the table.

No.

In our federated republican form of government, the member States are responsible, each for its own internal affairs. It’s time for them to stop freeloading off the Federal government—freeloading off the citizens of the other 49 States—and start honoring their own obligations toward their own citizens. Each State has the money. It simply needs to reallocate its spending and stop taking ever more money away from its own citizens in the form of ever rising tax rates.

“Extreme Emotional Disturbance”

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The lawyers defending Luigi Mangione for his (alleged) murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson are planning to say that Mangione admits to his murder, and then the lawyers will argue that he can’t be held liable for his murder because he had an angst.

Guilty but insane is a viable defense in some jurisdictions, and New York, where Mangione is supposed to have committed his crime, has something of the sort. Typically, the plea results in confinement in a psychiatric facility for treatment, and on successful treatment (if that occurs), the guilty person is then transferred to a prison wherein he serves the remainder of the sentence he would have received had he been simply convicted of the crime.

That works for me.

In the event, the defense decided not to run that defense by the judge or the jury. Too bad, from my perspective. That would have gotten Mangione locked up sooner, saving the court time and the people tax money.

A Thought on the MOU

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Of course this depends on how accurately the press is reporting an unnamed official’s “readout” of what the press alleges is the Memorandum of Understanding between us and Iran regarding the Iran war. Adding skepticism to the accuracy of this readout is Iran’s insistence that the text of the MOU not be released yet.

Paragraph 1. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war, by signing this memorandum of understanding, declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and other provisions of this paragraph.
WSJ analysis
The inclusion of Lebanon is highly controversial in Israel, which is fighting a war there with Hezbollah. This official version includes tougher language on Lebanon’s sovereignty.

It’s more than controversial. The inclusion of Lebanon in this MOU is Trump’s mistake. The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel is entirely separate from the conflict between the US and Israel (and now US only) and Iran, and it should have been kept so.

Paragraph 2. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.
WSJ analysis
President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began the war calling on Iranians to overthrow the regime, a goal that faded as the government in Tehran held firm.

This is so blatantly wrong that the WSJ‘s “annotators” can only be taken as lying. Neither Trump nor Netanyahu (whose commentary would be irrelevant, anyway) never called for regime change—they—Trump—only said that it would be nice, and “here’s an opportunity for the Iranian people.”

Paragraph 5. Upon the signing of this memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will be reinstated. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialog with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.
WSJ analysis
Iran’s main obligation under the deal, lifting its chokehold on the strait. The updated version says Iran agrees not to charge fees for transit for 60 days and blesses an Iranian plan to work with Oman on the future administration of the strait, but says they must involve other Gulf states in the discussion.

This is Trump’s mistake. He needed to insist on Iran openly acknowledging the international waters characteristic of the Strait. At most, at this point, he should not have agreed to any sort of consortium involving Iran for “managing” the Strait.