QandO

  It appears unmistakeable that the government, through proxies, is attempting to silence opposition voice or voices they don't agree with. We talked about how it and Big Tech were colluding yesterday to keep dissenting voices off of social media.  Now we find two Democratic Congresspersons from California sending letters to the CEO's of  AT&T, Verizon, Roku, Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Charter Communications, Dish Network, Cox Communications, Altice USA, Alphabet Inc, and Hulu.  You can see the letters here . One paragraph makes it clear what side of the political spectrum they're after: "Experts have noted that the right-wing media ecosystem is “much more susceptible…to disinformation, lies, and half-truths.” Right-wing media outlets, like Newsmax, One America News Network (OANN), and Fox News all aired misinformation about the November 2020 elections. For example, both Newsmax and OANN “ran incendiary reports” of false information following the elections and...

Take a moment and read these three paragraphs: A senior administration official tells Reuters that the Biden administration is asking Facebook, Twitter and Google to help prevent anti-vaccine fears from going viral, as distrust of the inoculations emerges as a major barrier in the fight against the deadly virus. “Disinformation that causes vaccine hesitancy is going to be a huge obstacle to getting everyone vaccinated and there are no larger players in that than the social media platforms,” the White House source told the news agency.   “We are talking to them … so they understand the importance of misinformation and disinformation and how they can get rid of it quickly,” the source added. It's one thing to have government ask for assistance in spreading the word on how good and effective vaccines are. It is an entirely different matter to ask for help in censoring commentary and opinion that doesn't support their narrative. It doesn't matter how you feel about vaccines (p...

John Kerry, while jetting around in his private aircraft, tells us we only have 9 years to save the world from climate change . "Around 2030 is the date at which we have to get the world now on the right path in order to cap the level of warming at that level of 1.5 [degrees celsius]," he said at a Munich Security Conference.  "The scientists told us three years ago we had 12 years to avert the worst consequences of climate crisis. We are now three years gone, so we have nine years left," Kerry later told CBS News. "There is no room for B.S. anymore. There's no faking it on this one," the climate czar said.  No BS? No "faking it" anymore? How many times have we heard that sort of talk? Well, over the years, here are a few examples: 1967 Salt Lake Tribune: Dire Famine Forecast by 1975, Already Too Late 1969 NYT: "Unless we are extremely lucky, everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years. The situation will get worse unles...

  Most members of Congress are unimpressive in terms of accomplishments while in office.  By that I mean they introduce little legislation and what they do introduce is of little importance.  But they like the lifestyle and perks that come with with the job so they struggle to find ways to impress their constituency and their financial contributors. It has become increasingly hard since 2011 when Congress killed the ability of members of Congress to use "earmarks" to buy votes.  Earmarks, as Charles Lipson describes them "captured specific benefits" (i.e. payback for donors and supporters) and "offloaded the costs onto taxpayers." In the recent past, bills coming through the House and Senate were larded with earmarks whether or not the earmark had anything to do with the purpose of the bill (and 99% likely didn't) or not. And if the earmarks were significant enough, you could count on that member's vote for the bill, even if they disagreed with the...

I think most people realize that true self-defense depends on one's self and not some other entity. While it may make you feel good to know the police are there to "serve and protect", protection that is 10 minutes away when the threat to your life is immediate is, in reality, useless. A twelve year-old boy in Goldsboro, NC learned the truth of that matter when he was forced to defend his 73 year-old grandmother from armed home invaders. Had he not had access to a firearm, this story would have likely had an entirely different outcome. On Feb. 13, around 1 a.m. local time, officers responding to a report of gunfire entered the apartment of Linda Ellis. There, officers found Ellis, a 73-year-old black woman, suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. Police subsequently found Khalil Herring of Goldsboro at a nearby intersection also suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. Both Ellis and Herring were taken to a nearby hospital where Mr. Herring succumbed to his injuries. ...

I'm sure you are aware of it, but in many cases, we've come to believe that just because someone has a pile of money, they've got the world all figured out and we should listen to them. Take Bill Gates, for instance. His background and success are familiar to most. He has billions upon billions of dollars in the area in which he has some expertise. Somehow, apparently, this translates into expertise on what we should (and shouldn't) eat.  And his opinion, as you might guess, is biased by his beliefs, no matter how unfounded. I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time. Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.   So for meat in the middle-income-and-above countries, I do think it’s possible. But it’s one of those ones where, wow, you h...

I've been watching the reaction to the Charlottesville mess and, given the media coverage, you'd have thought some left-wing, Bernie Sanders groupie had shot a Republican congressman.  Everybody and their brother has weighed in on the confrontation. Nazis.  I saw a meme this week and it showed an iconic WWII photo of members of the 101st Airborne Division holding up a captured Nazi flag.  And it said, "the only time an American should be holding a Nazi flag is if it has been captured in war." I totally agree.  Nazism is a disgusting and murderous ideology based on "nation and race". However, right below that picture should have been a picture of the Antifa flag with essentially the same thoughts delivered. And let's not forget the racist BLM faction that was also a part of the Antifa group. A few points to make: 1) The actions, or, in fact, the non-action of the police at the ostensible orders of the mayor to not keep the peace is both reprehen...

Wellesley College has decided that “free speech” that infringes on another’s “liberty” (as they choose to define it) is inappropriate and should not be allowed on campus.  To be precise, six guardians of truth, justice and the Wellesley Way (i.e. the faculty members of the Commission on Race, Ethnicity and Equity, aka CREE) at Wellesley use this as their standard ( taken from the statement they issued ): However, as historian W. Jelani Cobb notes, “The freedom to offend the powerful is not equivalent to the freedom to bully the relatively disempowered. The enlightenment principles that undergird free speech also prescribed that the natural limits of one’s liberty lie at the precise point at which it begins to impose upon the liberty of another.” A couple of points.  The “enlightenment principles” that “undergird free speech” certainly did not, in any way, recognize a “right not to be offended”.  Being offended is as subjective and arbitrary as one can...

I ask this because of an op/ed penned by a British woman named Katie Hopkins in the UK’s Daily Mail.  It is clear she’s finally had it with the multicultural nonsense that flows so easily from the liberal side of the political spectrum, promising a utopia of tolerance while delivering a toxic culture of death, destruction and oppression to their midst.   And even as that becomes obvious, the liberals piously admonish anyone who speaks out against the buzz words of “multiculturalism”, “diversity” and “tolerance”.  You see, she has realized that those three concepts, as defined by liberals, are killing them.  And the recent attack at Britain’s Parliament, well, it was just one too many incidents, such that Ms. Hopkins is done playing the deadly game.  Survival has a tendency to strip utopian foolishness from the equation of life and show it for what it is.  And my bet is more and more Brits are coming around  the view Ms. Hopkins has now expressed....

The fight against the Gorsuch SCOTUS nomination begins with the usual mischaracterization of his legal positions by opponents.  In this case the attack is made by Eric Posner through  Philip Hamburger and a convenient straw man: As the Senate prepares to question Judge Neil Gorsuch for possible appointment to the Supreme Court, my former colleague Eric Posner asks: “Is Gorsuch a Hamburgerian?” Posner thereby attempts to set up Gorsuch by associating him with . . . not really me, nor my scholarship, but a boogeyman of Posner’s imagination. The charge?  Gorsuch is an “anti-elitist” (that’s bad? – ed.).  Regardless, Hamburger makes mince meat (ok, I couldn’t resist) of the Posner argument, such that it is: There is nothing “anti-elite” in explaining the U.S. Constitution’s representative form of government and its guarantees of rights. Nor is there anything anti-elite in studying the role of class in the development of administrative power. My scholarship (p...

Gavin Newsom, former mayor of San Francisco, is running for Governor of California.  And of course, as a believer in big government as well as “government as a solution”, Newsom feels compelled to make benefit promises with other people’s money.  In this case, he’s proposing that California put its  own single-payer health care system  in place since that old meanie Trump seems to be intent on dismantling the sparklingly successful ObamaCare.  </sarc> No, seriously, this guy wants to pile even more debt on a state that can’t afford the debt it has now. As Stephen Green points out  over at Insty’s place : A similar plan was rejected in November by Colorado voters by a four-to-one margin. Something about doubling state taxes and spending in the first year didn’t seem to sit well with voters. And as reported  last week , California’s top marginal income tax is already the highest in the nation — at 13.3% it’s nearly one-third higher than se...

Of course, grabbing the headlines are the clueless tantrums we see reported almost daily among the various colleges and universities in this country.  It doesn’t take long to realize that they’re not being educated, but instead “activated”.  And the ideology that thrives in identity politics is the driving force behind that activation. Unfortunately those who are activated tend to try to find a place in society where they can use what their indoctrination has taught them.  One of those places is within the area of public education.  How does the ideology of identity politics effect and infect public education.  A prime example of that infection can be found in the deep blue state of New York.  As we’re finding out, literacy as a prerequisite to teaching is no longer a priority.   Skin color, however, is: A New York literacy test designed to weed out unqualified teachers, called the Academic Literacy Skills Test, is to be done away with...

Have certain Democratic governors and mayors found their “inner George Wallace”.   Seems it might be so: Our liberal governors and mayors are in the tradition of their Democratic predecessors in Arkansas and Alabama. They have interposed themselves between the federal government and their sanctuary states and cities, ordering their police to refuse to allow federal agents do fulfill a federal mandate to remove illegal aliens, especially felons, from the country. If statues could smile, those being removed from public places would be grinning from marble ear to marble ear at the resurrection of their legal theory. Ike was famous for his grin, Jack for his cool. But both understood a challenge to federal authority when they saw it, and didn’t hesitate to use the threat of force to face down challenges to that authority. Your move, Donald. Yeah, I’m not so sure a “threat of force” is what is called for here, but the power of the purse strings, especially in these times of defic...

One of my pet peeves is when I hear someone say, about a “benefit” of some sort, “but the government pays for it”.  No, the government doesn’t.  Some poor schlub from which the government has extracted tax money has paid for it.  And that goes for everything.  No matter what it is, someone pays for it.  That extends to government intrusion in the market place in which it arbitrarily sets prices.  For instance, it sets a minimum wage.  Someone is going to pay for that increase in the minimum wage. In some states  that person is the customer: The federal government hasn’t raised the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour since 2009, putting pressure on cities and states to boost wages locally to keep up with rising living costs. The effective minimum wage has increased in 27 states and Washington, D.C., since January 2014. Many restaurant owners say they have added surcharges because jacking up menu prices can turn off customers who are  sensiti...

I guess everyone has heard about the violence at Middlebury College.  It wouldn’t be especially noteworthy if it were isolated or unique.  But it isn’t.  It seems to be a part of a growing and more violent trend on college campuses. It first burst onto the headlines at Berkeley around February 2nd when violent protesters rioted, burned and destroyed property  in order to block  a Milo Yiannopoulos speech.  Some who had come to hear Yiannopoulos were beaten.  The claim, by the rioters, was they were “anti-fascists” out to shout down and shut down the racist Yiannopoulos. Fast forward approximately one month and  the scene in Middlebury College in Vermont . Students and professors at Middlebury College were ashamed and embarrassed after an explosive protest Thursday night that has forced the school to reconsider what it means to embrace free speech. The normally peaceful campus of Middlebury College, with its mountain backdrop and ...