Saturday, October 01, 2022

 Does Taming Inflation Necessarily Bring Unemployment?


Reader Robin forwarded short piece in Axios Macro entitled “Powell Pain - “This is gonna hurt.”  It analyzed and attempted to predict the effects of Jerome Powell, head of the Federal Reserve Board, continuing to raise interest rates, lately by 3/4 of a percent (75 basis points)—and signaling more prime rate hikes to come.  She asks three questions:

  1. Should the Fed acted faster?
  2. Is it acting in a meaningful way;  and
  3. Will raising interest rates equally share the burden among different U.S. classes/interest groups?
Question 1 is both easy and hard to answer.  Yes, of course, the Fed should have acted earlier:  President Trump already increased the money supply somewhat with his Paycheck Protection Plan—though, by keeping jobs (for consumers with demand for goods and services), that was the least inflationary government program possible. The real trouble came with President Biden’s multiple Corona-19 stimulus  package.  🎵Money for Nothin’ and Your Chicks for Free🎵. Followed by the “Inflation Reduction Act,” which—instead of adhering to its title—doled out 4B

Once we got in this mess, a recession is the only way out.  Reagan understood.  He was the first President to grant the Fed political independence, and damn the political consequences.  


Remember Carter’s inflation was around 14 percent.  Unemployment was nearly 9 percent.  Reagan understood inflation primarily was a tax on the poor.  So he told the Fed taming inflation was more important than reducing unemployment.  



Result:  the recession of 1981-82.  Result, what we all thought until the current Administration, was a permanent end to inflation.  And, Mirabile dictu,  

  1. banned additional oil leases on federal land, canceled Keystone XL, and almost instantly turned us from  net energy exporter to an importer, thus exposing us to the inflationary shocks of world oil prices.  BIDEN DID THIS DELIBERATELY.
  2. Biden mandated higher CAFE standards, and outright moves to electric cars—when Europe now is proving wind is worthless (viable, DC not AC like the grid, so you have to waste power on alternators or flywheels); and it would take solar panels (I calculated a decade ago) the size of Wyoming even to make a dent in our needs (and solar, like wind both is variable and DC, not AC).  BIDEN DID THIS DELIBERATELY.
  3. The shut down was a long time ago: inflation dropped in the last year of the Trump Administration.
  4. Bush’s saving of some, not all, Banks is close to the line, but was not inflationary—it prevented the inflation a bank run would have caused.  Trump’s PPP loans were designed only to keep small businesses employing people—and by all accounts that worked.  Again, the data show it wasn’t inflationary.  Both programs were narrowly focused.
  5. The Inflation Reduction Act is nothing but pork spending to please constituents:  unions, eggheads (“Biden forgave $10,000 in student loans.  In unrelated news, colleges raised tuition by $10,000), and ridiculous non-petroleum energy subsidies.  BIDEN DID THIS DELIBERATELY.
  6. If two Republican Administrations, and one Democratic Administration can get through 20 years with out inflation, the next, inflationary Administration IS DOING SOMETHING DELIBERATELY WRONG.

Milton Friedman famously said:  “ Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”  https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/heritage-explains/the-real-story-behind-inflation. We all thought government learned its lesson that printing money to buy votes was disastrous.  Biden proved us wrong.  

Saturday, September 24, 2022

 Federal Power to Regulate Abortion


Two weeks ago, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-Dumkoff) introduced legislation celebrated by leftists and the media—but I repeat myself—that would establish a nationwide right to abortion up to 15 weeks into pregnancy.  Graham won plaudits—from Democrats.  Yet, the bill has no chance of passing.  Still, were it to become law, would it be Constitutional?  

I don’t analyze the issue as a “right-to-lifer” or a Christian.  Rather, I consider only Constitutional Originalism, the reason I opposed the Roe and Casey decisions—neither were supported by the Constitution.  That document is a relatively immutable division of labor between nearly unlimited state sovereigns, and the powers those states delegated to the central government:

The Constitution enumerates specific powers and duties lawfully exercised by Washington—and allocates the rest elsewhere:  “any powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution . . . are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  Amendment 10

The Dobbs decision, of course, followed exactly that approach.  It overturned Roe and Casey, finding no abortion right in the U.S. Constitution.  

The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 721 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The right to abortion does not fall within this category. Until the latter part of the 20th century, such a right was entirely unknown in American law. Indeed, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, three quarters of the States made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy. The abortion right is also critically different from any other right that this Court has held to fall within the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of “liberty.” Roe’s defenders characterize the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage, but abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged, because it destroys what those decisions called “fetal life” and what the law now before us describes as an “un-born human being.” . . .

It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives. “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.” Casey, 505 U. S., at 979 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). That is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand. 

Dobbs, Slip Op. at 5, 6.

So if abortion qua abortion is not within Federal powers, upon what authority could Congress pin this Graham bill?   The sole answer must lay in Art. I, Sec. 8, which sets forth Congress’s powers.  And in that Section, only two clauses could be relevant:  the Commerce Clause (Clause 3) and the Necessary and Proper Clause (clause 18).  

The Commerce Clause originally had been read expansively—most famously in Wickard v. Fillburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), upholding Federal regulation of wheat planted and consumed solely on the farm, never crossing intestate lines.  Yet the current court views the same provision more narrowly.  In upholding the Affordable Care Act, for example, five Justices (separately) found the law violated both the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses.  Nat’l Fed. of Ins. Bus. v. Sebelius, 567, U.S. 519, 558-61, 649-55 (2012) (Roberts, C.J. Majority Opinion; Kennedy Dissent).  One suspects something Wickard this way goes. 

Early interpretations of “Necessary & Proper” read it as providing essentially stand-alone legislative authority, see McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 421 (1819) (“If the end be legitimate and within the scope of the Constitution, all the means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted [to] that end, and which are not prohibited, may constitutionally be employed to carry it into effect.”).  More recent jurisprudence, however, tries to tie the legislative action to an explicit Congressional power, with “Necessary and Proper” often the backstop to enforceability.  The U.S. Criminal Code, for example, could not apply except on Federal lands—except that Supreme Court upheld it as “Necessary and Proper” to other explicit powers.  United States v. Comstock, 560 U.S. 126 (2010) (“[Since McCulloch, we have] made clear that, in determining whether the Necessary and Proper Clause grants Congress the legislative authority to enact a particular federal statute, we look to see whether the statute constitutes a means that is rationally related to the implementation of a constitutionally enumerated power.”) (emphasis added).

Most relevant here, the “Necessary and Proper” clause cannot override the Federalism inherent in the Constitution:

Congress exercises its conferred powers subject to the limitations contained in the Constitution. Thus, for example, under the Commerce Clause Congress may regulate publishers engaged in interstate commerce, but Congress is constrained in the exercise of that power by the First Amendment. The Tenth Amendment likewise restrains the power of Congress, but this limit is not derived from the text of the Tenth Amendment itself, which, as we have discussed, is essentially a tautology. Instead, the Tenth Amendment confirms that the power of the Federal Government is subject to limits that may, in a given instance, reserve power to the States. The Tenth Amendment thus directs us to determine, as in this case, whether an incident of state sovereignty is protected by a limitation on an Article I power.

New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 156-57 (1992) (emphasis added).

In overturning Roe and Casey, Dobbs clarified beyond cavil the lack of Federal authority over abortion; “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”  Dobbs, Slip Op. at 79.  That paraphrase of the 10th Amendment was no accident—state legislators are the sole “elected representatives” with law-making jurisdiction.

In sum, only those who believe in a “Gumby Constitution” plausibly can claim this bill, even were it to pass, could survive judicial review.

Beyond that, I wonder if liberals actually read Senator Graham’s bill.  Because it’s possible, though not certain, as they say in SF movies, “It’s a trap!”  Section 3 of the bill would codify a 15 week federal abortion right, with exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother.  But the slightly longer Section 2 makes legislative findings seemingly lifted from right-to-life literature:

“(1) Medical and other authorities now know more about human prenatal development than ever before, including that—

(A) an unborn child first moves about in the womb and first reacts to touch at approxi- mately 8 weeks gestation;

(B) the eyes begin to form at 5 weeks ges- tation and finish forming by 10 weeks gestation;

(C) eye movements can be detected by ultrasound at 12 weeks gestation;

(D) by 8 to 9 weeks gestation, an unborn child has detectable brain waves;

(E) at 9 weeks gestation—

(i) an unborn child’s diaphragm is developing, and he or she may even hiccup; and

(ii) an unborn child is beginning to move about freely in the womb;

(F) by 9 to 11 weeks gestation, teeth as well as external genitalia begin to form; 

(G) by 10 weeks gestation—

(i) all of an unborn child’s organ rudiments are formed and in place 

ii) the digestive system and kidneys start to function; and

(iii) an unborn child will show a preference for either right-handedness or left handedness; and [sic]

(H) at 12 weeks gestation—

(i) an unborn child can open and close his or her fingers, starts to make sucking motions, and senses stimulation from the world outside the womb; and

(ii) fingernails and fingerprints begin to form.

(2) The Supreme Court of the United States has acknowledged that, by at least 12 weeks gestation, an unborn child has taken on ‘‘the human form’’ in all relevant aspects. Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 160 (2007) [Partial Birth Abortion case; see analysis here].

(3) Pain receptors (also known as ‘‘nociceptors’’) begin forming at 7 weeks gestational age. Nerves linking these pain receptors to the brain’s thalamus and subcortical plate form between 12 and 20 weeks gestational age. At no later than 16 weeks gestational age, the first contact occurs between the subcortical plate and these forming fibers.

4) In considering the use of anesthesia for invasive medical procedures performed on the fetus, doctors have concluded, based on the evidence, that from as early as 12 weeks gestational age, and certainly by 15 weeks gestational age, the fetus is extremely sensitive to painful stimuli, making it necessary to apply adequate analgesia and anesthesia to prevent fetal suffering.

(5) Substantial evidence indicates that neural elements, such as the thalamus and subcortical plate, which develop at specific times during the early development of an unborn child, serve as pain-processing structures, and are different from the neural elements used for pain processing by adults. Recent evidence, particularly since 2016, demonstrates that structures responsible for pain show signs of sufficient maturation beginning at 15 week of gestation.

(6) In an unborn child, application of painful stimuli is associated with significant increases in stress hormones known as the stress response.

(7) Subjection to painful stimuli is associated with long-term harmful neurodevelopment effects, such as altered pain sensitivity and, possibly, emotional, behavioral, and learning disabilities later in life.

(8) For the purposes of surgery on unborn children, fetal anesthesia is routinely administered and is associated with a decrease in stress hormones compared to their level when painful stimuli are applied without such anesthesia.

(9) The assertion by some medical experts that an unborn child is incapable of experiencing pain until a point in pregnancy later than 24 weeks gestational age predominately rests on the assumption that the ability to experience pain depends on the cerebral cortex and requires nerve connections between the thalamus and the cortex. However, recent medical research and analysis, especially since 2007, provide strong evidence for the conclusion that a functioning cortex is not necessary to experience pain.

(10) Substantial evidence indicates that children born missing the bulk of the cerebral cortex, such as those with hydranencephaly, nevertheless experience pain.

(11) In adult humans and in animals, stimulation or ablation of the cerebral cortex does not alter pain perception, while stimulation or ablation of the thalamus does.

(12) The assertion of some medical experts that an unborn child remains in a coma-like sleep state that precludes an unborn child from experiencing pain is inconsistent with the documented reaction of unborn children to painful stimuli and with the experience of fetal surgeons who have found it necessary to sedate an unborn child with anesthesia and provide analgesia to prevent an unborn child from engaging in vigorous movement in reaction to invasive surgery.

13) Consequently, there is substantial medical evidence that an unborn child is capable of experiencing pain at least by 15 weeks gestational age, if not earlier.

(14) Abortion carries significant physical and psychological risks to the pregnant woman, and these physical and psychological risks increase with gestational age.

(15) The majority of abortion procedures performed after 15 weeks gestation are dismemberment abortion procedures which involve the use of surgical instruments to crush and tear an unborn child apart before removing the pieces of the dead child from the womb.

(16) Medical complications from dismemberment abortions include pelvic infection, incomplete abortions (retained tissue), blood clots, heavy bleeding or hemorrhage, laceration, tear, or other injury to the cervix, puncture, laceration, tear, or other injury to the uterus, injury to the bowel or bladder, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and other emotional or psychological problems. Further, in abortions performed after 15 weeks gestation, there is a higher risk of requiring a hysterectomy, other reparative surgery, or a blood transfusion.

(17) In subparagraphs (J) and (K) of section 2 of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (Public Law 108–105; 117 Stat. 1201), Congress found and declared that late-term abortion, such as a dismemberment abortion, ‘‘confuses the medical, legal, and ethical duties of physicians to preserve and promote life, as the physician acts directly against the physical life of a child’’ and ‘‘undermines the public’s perception of the appropriate role of a physician’’.”

Do pro-abortion people actually want such findings in Federal law?  Especially in a law that has no chance of surviving?  Even if the 15 week abortion ban is struck by a court, would the Section 2 findings be “severable” and remain in the U.S. Code?  I do not believe so—but wonder why pro-abortion groups would take that risk. 

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

 The Costliest Cities For Expats

Per Statistica:

According to Mercer's Cost of Living Index, Hong Kong is the least affordable city on the planet for foreign employees. Mercer ranked more than 200 cities from across the globe based on the prices of more than 200 items from categories such as housing, transportation, food and entertainment. 


 Hong Kong was the most exciting place to live before the turnover to the ChiComs (and for a few years after).  Even with all the Hong Kong Dollars in the world, I would not live there now.

Monday, September 19, 2022

 Greetings from Malaysian Time


No, I'm not actually IN Malaysia.  Which is unfortunate, because Malaysian food is about the best in the world.  Only Indonesian Rijsttafel is better.  The last good Malaysian food restaurant in Washington closed years ago (it had a fabulous roof deck where I once helped moot a Supreme Court argument scheduled the next day--I played Scalia).  

Instead, I'm participating in the meeting from home, via Zoom, with a 12 hour time difference.  Work all night, sleep all day.  I just woke, and am eating breakfast.  Which is unfortunate, because today (is/was) my birthday.  But at least I'm contributing in an international meeting far more collegial than the ones I worked on for 40 years.

In other news, on Saturday, a paper I co-wrote was presented at a Conference here in Washington.  It's a good paper, though in draft only at this point.  But it received more acclaim than I expected.  Top-flight economists and engineers sought buttonholed me looking for topic suggestions for papers for next year's conference.  Heady stuff for me--though I've published articles, and have an SSRN, I've never sought the limelight.  

I have a few ideas.  I can't wait to get started.  


Tuesday, September 13, 2022

This And That


It probably was unreasonable to expect grief to disappear in a day.  It's twenty one and two days later, and--last night--I heard one of my murdered friend's voices, and another one laugh.  Both died on AA Flight 77 that slammed into the Pentagon.




Few remember now, but then Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ordered his people back to work the at unhit rings of the Puzzle Palace, the next day.  The Secretary attempted to show neither X-acto blades, nor jet-fuel could slow our vital national defense.  But several DoD workers I knew told me the fires still were burning the next day, and smoke lasted over a week.  

It's not as if Rumsfeld could have found alternative housing:  the Pentagon is the largest office building in the D.C. Metroplex (even subtracting one fifth of the building).  The Powers That Be had no choice.  So do did the employees. 

I'm usually no fan of plaintiffs lawyers (and sovereign plus qualified immunity would apply here), but has anyone long-term toxicity studies?   I'm certain some employees employ long-term shrinks. 

 

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Twenty One

It has been twenty one years since three friends of mine were murdered by mid-Eastern Islamic terrorists.


 









That afternoon, I assumed such an occurrence would—from then on—occur every six months. Thank God it did not.

I’ve written before about my friends and will link to last year’s post and another from a few years before. I'm out of words to commemorate that loss.

Yet somehow I missed the contemporaneous words of singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter. 🎵Grand Central Station🎵, written shortly after 9/11, will speak for me. The song is here: "Grand Central Station (Album Version)" by Mary Chapin Carpenter on Amazon Music.


The first and last two stanzas are:

 

Got my work clothes on for love, sweat and dirt

All this holy dust upon my face an’ shirt

Headin’ uptown now, just as the shifts are changin’

To Grand Central Station . . . 


 

And now Hercules is starin’ down at me

Next to him’s Minerva and Mercury

Well, I nod to them and start my crawl

Flyers covern’ every wall, faces of the missing are all I see


Tomorrow, I’ll be back there, workn’ on the pile

Going in, comin’ out, single file

Before my job is done there’s one more trip I’m makin’

To Grand Central Station, Grand Central Station

 

Here’s to another 21 years without flyers on the wall—or terror fliers in the air.


Saturday, September 11, 2021

20 Years

It seems impossible it's been two decades since the last major terrorist attack on the U.S. murdered nearly 3,000. I've written about my three friends murdered by those terrorists. And about an American Hero who died while living in a house less than a half-mile from the house where I lived going to High-School. Needless to say, I never was a hero.

Around 1:00pm on 9/11, I remember walking back from my law firm, once we’d got confirmation that a partner with whom I was close was killed. For years, I had dated that partner's best friend, so "double dates" were the norm. At her anguished request I joined my ex-g/f at her house to share the grief.

Traffic was jammed--literally stopped around Dupont Circle--yet no one blew their horn. An eerie and graceful silence. I remember thinking to myself over and over: "Well, this is the new normal--we'll suffer one of these attacks every six months." Yet, that too didn't happen.

I'd like to think the two events were connected. Every adult who lived through September 11, 2001, grew up a bit, including our intel community. I know I matured that day. And as I slept on the couch at my ex-girlfriend’s apartment, I rededicated myself to this country and to American Exceptionalism. I still believe that's part of the shield protecting us for 20 years.

Below are some images from 9/11 and the next few days you may not have seen before. According to The Military Times, the picture of President George W. Bush was taken on September 12, 2001, as he shook the hands of first responders at the Pentagon. The flag hanging from the Pentagon--while rescue and recovery efforts still were underway--was sent by nearby Ft. Myers, and is the largest authorized flag for the military. 

The clock is from the Pentagon, stopped at the moment of impact.  Ironically, the Pentagon was in the process of a segment-by-segment renovation.  The segment struck by AA flight 77 was the first (and sole) section renovated; the death tole within the Pentagon was relatively low because fewer than normal had moved back into their new offices.

The last two images show some of the antennas festooned around the top of the World Trade Center.  The penultimate shot shows virtually every TV and Radio broadcaster transmitted from there.  The final picture shows microwave feed horns as part of a longer transmission path, broken (of course) when the towers melted and turned to rubble.  When the towers collapsed, radio and TV stations switched to their back-up transmitters/antennas, most on the Empire State Building.  But those were not nearly as well positioned:  over-the-air service in New Jersey and Connecticut suffered for several years.  




Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Eighteen Long Years

I haven’t posted here in ages.  So long, that I’ve forgotten how to use basic HTML, never mind newer versions.  Still, on this day, it’s worth taking time to remember what happened at around 8:30am that beautiful Tuesday—not a cloud in the sky.  Until black clouds appeared in New York, Washington, and a Pennsylvania wilderness.

Stop and think about what you thought that day.  I assumed this was the new normal, and something like this would happen—especially in Washington—every six months.  The world, I thought, was a war zone.

Eighteen years later, I’m glad that’s not true.  It’s largely thanks to U.S., French and British ability rapidly to project force quickly.  But has much been settled?  No—nor will it, for most people ask the wrong questions.

On September 11, remember those you knew that gave their lives (including three friends—four, perhaps:  the widower of my late friends committed suicide not long ago), and some of the heroes who saved as many lives as possible.  Such as Rick Riscorla.

RIP all.

@nooil4Pacifists

Monday, November 27, 2017

He Fights








Even Sayet over at Town Hall terrific analysis of the situation the Left has painted itself into:    

"It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive."  They have doubled-down with 91% negative coverage.  Yet, where were they when Obama was destroying our country?  There is nothing “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent."  


Trump has exposed the Propaganda Machine.  Say "anything you want about this president...he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times.  I don’t care.  I can’t spare this man.  He fights." Just as "General George Patton was a vulgar-talking, son-of-a-bitch.  In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank.  But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum, then Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich." 



Maybe #NeverTrumpers consider get on the #TrumpTrain.  He fights well.  Use your imagination a little.  

More at https://townhall.com/columnists/evansayet/2017/07/13/he-fights-n2354580




Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Keep Right Except to Pass



Keep Right Except to Pass

From Joe Tarica of the San Luis Obispo Tribune.  From his Joetopia Series
Everywhere we turn these days, it seems, the truth dies, intelligence and education are considered a weakness, facts are ridiculed, rage and anger rule the day.
Whether it’s at a White House press conference or in the fast lane on the freeway, patience, respect, courtesy and kindness are, for many people, relics of a bygone era.

Sir, I agree almost completely.  Let's take your example of the fast lane on the freeway. 

In the fast lane, we find two kinds of drivers. First, the maniac in front of you who refuses to pull over and let you pass.  The only thing worse than him, of course is the enraged hooligan behind that cannot pass you.  Who is right and who is wrong?  Both are equally wrong, some might say. What can be done? 

It turns out, a lot.  Japan has one of the most courteous road systems in the world.  This came about because of the social pressure for everyone to follow the same rules, and to be polite to each other.  Public safety campaign

Keep right to pass is safer way to drive, as well as equitable use of the resources on the road.  Slower people should not keep faster people from their appointed rounds, and road ragers need to chill out.  Part of the problem?  We do not follow the basic rule of the road, which is, to keep right except to pass.  This is enshrined in the California motor vehicle operation code.  However, people no longer pay attention, no longer follow the rules.  The police do not enforce it, generally, for reasons only they can state.  

Why not educate everyone?  Campaign to Make the Central Coast the "Friendliest Drivers in the State" or "Friendliest Highways in the State"  in concert with the other media and the authorities. You donate editorial space to it.  As your commentary on the community. The police could start giving our warnings, and you could run polls to measure driver contentment.  Think about what an impact you could make doing that.  

There is low hanging fruit on the path to ending divisiveness: 
Joetopia, with the local authorities could devise a program to educate the public and create good karma.  Yes.  It can be done. Japan has done it.  So can we.  

This respect for other drivers and the law of the land will increase the politeness level of the entire area.   

Once we come together as a community on our shared roads, then, and only then perhaps, we can tackle some heavier issues as a team.  

You have the power to change the world to a more polite and kind place to live, simply by educating people about the rules. Let us begin.


Sunday, December 18, 2016

Electoral College: Not Broken

Each time, horrified sore losers on the losing side lambast the electoral college in a barrage of sour grape rationalization.   It's almost comical in its predictability.   Remember the furor in 2000?



However, the electoral college is enshrined in the constitution.  Short of a constitutional amendment (or legislation from the bench via the Supreme Court) for better or worse... we are stuck with it.

Having said that, let's look at the bright side:

1.  The rules of the game are well known.  Everyone plays at equal disadvantage.

2.  California alone, a single state, is so powerful that it would dominate national election politics.  This is aptly illustrated in the first graphic.

3.  A close popular election could trigger a nationwide recount nightmare, as George Will points out:
Those who demand direct popular election of the president should be advised... the electoral vote system quarantines electoral disputes.
Perhaps the manner in which we choose our sole nationally-elected representative isn't perfect, but it's not broken either.  

Friday, December 09, 2016

Dreamers in Japan

Japan, a country that is still 98% ethically Yamato, is set to deport an illegal/undocumented 16 year old Thai boy, who was born and raised in Japan.
Although Utinan does not read or write Thai, he is able to speak the language and is young enough to adapt to life back in Thailand, the judges said.
His mother overstayed her visa.  

Yes, Children bear the pain of sins of their parents the world over.  They are also amazingly resilient. 

Could it be that  Japanese speaking Utinan will be a skilled translator in his home country?  He won't lack for livelihood.  Moreover, he has many blood relatives in Thailand, and none in Japan.  

While Neither the Japan nor the Thailand option looks ideal for Utinan, I believe he will be okay.  

Thursday, December 08, 2016

Fake News Cost Hillary The Election


Hillary speaking at Harry Reid's retirement:    
“The epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year — it’s now clear the so-called fake news can have real-world consequences... Lives are at risk... It’s a danger that must be addressed and addressed quickly,” she said
Fake news cost her the election.  The Main Stream Media is completely under the control of the far left, and profoundly influential.  They published misleading and untrue polls and predictions, right up until the end, concluding that Trump was unqualified, unelectable. Social Media also swings left in their view  WaPo's reporting on Russian influence.  WaPo Now Admits article on ‘Russian propaganda’ & ‘fake news’ is based on sham research. Of course, not even Hillary bought that one.  The MSM has a history of "fake but accurate" reporting.  

Completely disconnected from reality, the MSM spews story after story, describing a world where Hillary is a done deal, where Trump is a racist, sexist homophobic bigoted loser.  These stories were backed up, buttressed by polls known to be tilted to the democratic side for generations. This was not journaling, it was not reporting, it was merely far left propaganda.  

America saw through the lies, while Hillary didn't.   Had the MSM provided a true picture of the country, and disclosed it was Hillary that was the underdog, how different a race would it have been? Hillary hardly campaigned in the midwest....

She calls on Congress to enact legislation.  Perhaps they should follow the example of Italy.  Italy forbids the media from publishing polls weeks ahead of the election.  Isn't it time we joined western democracies and eliminated the fake poll pushing?

In 2008, the same drumbeat was being played by the media.  Vote Democratic or you are a racist.  At that time, Ann Coulter published a study on fake polls:
Reviewing the polls printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post in the last month of every presidential election since 1976, I found the polls were never wrong in a friendly way to Republicans. When the polls were wrong, which was often, they overestimated support for the Democrat, usually by about 6 to 10 points.
The MSM is well aware of this endemic problem, and refuse to police themselves.  This historically prejudiced fake news should be enough for legislation preventing such further election manipulations.  

Consistently publishing misleading polls isn't a scientifically sound practice and isn't in the public interest.  It's the same thing as shouting fire in a crowded theater, because as Hillary puts it "peoples lives are at stake."