District Judge David Bunning has jailed a Kentucky county clerk who refused to violate her Christian faith and issue licenses to same-sex couples. (Via WND.) Fine (yes, how about a fine as a first option). Fire Kim Davis if she refuses to do the government’s business. It’s the dirty business she signed up for. But jail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTF!
Broadcaster Lars Larson did a bang-up job, today, in shaming City of Oregon Mayor Dan Holladay for his ambient lawlessness: first, for securing appropriations in the cause of urban, central planning; next, in his haste to frustrate the democratic will of the outraged citizens.
The circumstances, courtesy of the Portland Tribune:
Mayor Dan Holladay’s opinion piece published in the Autumn 2015 Trail News, a publication providing citizens information on most city departments, told every household in the city that a petition to kill urban renewal would have a “very chilling effect on economic development” not just in the downtown urban renewal district, but throughout the city.
After the state received a complaint on Aug. 25 from petitioners, Holladay said he “made a mistake” by submitting the piece for the Trail News.
State law (ORS 260.432) says that elected officials shouldn’t publish letters advocating a political position in “a newsletter or other publication produced and distributed by public employees.” Oregon City’s mayor has for years submitted a piece to the “City Matters” column on page 2 of the city’s Trail News publication.
…
John Williams, one of the petitioners, offered this trenchant condemnation:
Holladay doubly misstepped by submitting the argument for a city publication before the measure had even gotten enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
“He has the right to express his opinion, but he shouldn’t be using citizens’ taxpayer dollars to try to put a halt to a democratic process,” Williams said. “Signing the petition in question will not ‘put a halt to these programs and many others’ as he claims, but only put an issue on the ballot for citizens to debate.” …
And no representative ought to use “citizens’ taxpayer dollars” for job-creation programs. The narrowest interpretation of a local government’s authority ought to be pursued and adhered to by all local representatives, whatever their political stripe.
That government job-creation programs are a racket for the locality is abundantly clear in our neck of The Evergreen State. Paving over quaint, perfectly lovely trails is a political hobbyhorse around here.
Local politics is not my bailiwick; but when I do venture into the miasma, the blood boils at the excesses in the pink state.
Those who’re better suited to confront the juggernaut that is local government might find it useful to apprise themselves of the history and politics of Urban Renewal, a history that has a lot to do with making poor people go away by demolishing their homes—gentrification, if you will. City officials—they live off wealth others generate: taxes—“grow” concerned over “declining incomes in and tax revenues from certain neighborhoods.” They then use their power to designate them as “blighted.” Government’s hope, ultimately, is to generate more tax revenues from the neighborhoods.
The CATO Institute speaks to how cities use tax-increment financing (TIF) in the service of “crony capitalism and social engineering.” If you want to slum it, read about the history and politics of TIF.
Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Government, Private Property, Regulation
This statement is immutably true: Were we unencumbered by the Environmental Protection Agency, “three million gallons of toxic slurry” would not now be flowing “down the rivers of the West,” “at a rate of 740 gallons a minute.” The sludge was released by “the E-men” into “a creek that is a tributary of the Animas River.” (WSJ)
The reason similar catastrophes are likely to reoccur courtesy of government is because these stooges of the state legislate themselves the kind of legal immunity denied to private companies.
Naturally, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, known as the Superfund law, gives EPA clean-up crews immunity from the trial bar when they are negligent. Yet the Durango blowout was entirely avoidable.
For the same reason, these lethal idiots were disinclined to “warn state and local officials” for a full 24 hours. Locals “learned about the fiasco when they saw their river become yellow curry.”
And Americans want more government!
… The plume of lead, arsenic, mercury, copper, cadmium and other heavy metals turned the water a memorable shade of yellow-orange chrome. The sludge is so acidic that it stings upon touch. Colorado, New Mexico and the Navajo Indian reservation have declared states of emergency as the contamination empties into Lake Powell in Utah and the San Juan River in New Mexico.
The ecological ramifications are uncertain, though the San Juan is designated as “critical habitat” for the Colorado Pike Minnow and Razorback Sucker fish. The regional economy that depends on recreational tourism like rafting, kayaking and fly fishing has been damaged. Drinking water is potable only because utilities closed their intake gates, but pollution in the water table has deprived farmers and rural residents of a source for wells, livestock and crop irrigation. …
UPDATE (7/5/2018):
Nothing even alleged against Pruitt is remotely as bad as the Obama EPA poisoning the Animas River. pic.twitter.com/09ZoHKRaZy
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) July 5, 2018
Business, Economy, Elections, Free Markets, Government, Politics
“Trump Should Triangulate” is the current column, now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine. An excerpt:
Working people warm to Donald Trump. He appeals to a good segment of real Americans. The circle jerk of power brokers that is American media, however, lacks the depth and understanding to grasp the fellow-feeling Trump engenders in his fans.
Working people warm to Donald Trump. He appeals to a good segment of real Americans. The circle jerk of power brokers that is American media, however, lacks the depth and understanding to grasp the fellow-feeling Trump engenders in his fans.
THE MEDIA STRUMPETS
Amid sneers about Trump’s “crazy, entertaining, simplistic talk,” the none-too bright Joan Walsh, Salon editor-in-chief, proclaimed (MSNBC): “I look at those people and I feel sad. That is really such a low common denominator. They’re all Republicans … they really don’t have a firm grasp on reality.”
For failing to foresee Trump’s staying power, smarmy Michael Smerconish (CNN) scolded himself adoringly. He was what “Mr. Trump would call ‘a loser.’” Smerconish’s admission was a way of copping to his superiority. From such vertiginous intellectual heights, Smerconish was incapable of fathoming the atavistic instincts elicited by the candidate. Nevertheless, the broadcaster “quadrupled down.” The country would be delivered from Donald by Mexican drug lord El Chapo, who’d scare Trump away.
Campbell Brown, another banal bloviator, ventured that Trump resonates with a fringe and was fast approaching a time when he would, like Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, “max-out the craziness” quotient.
Trump supporters were simply enamored of his vibe, said a dismissive Ellis Henican.
As derisive, another Fox News commentator spoke about the “meat and potatoes” for which Trump cheerleaders hanker. I suspect he meant “red meat.”
National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein divined his own taxonomy of the Republican Beast: the “upscale Republicans and the blue-collar Republicans.” The group of toothless rube-hicks Brownstein places in Trump’s camp.
Pollster Frank Luntz provides his own brand of asphyxiating agitprop: The little people want to elect someone they’d have a beer with.
A British late night anchor—a CNN hire!—offered this non sequitur: Trump painting himself as anti-establishment and, at the same time, owning hotels: this was a contradiction. In the mind of this asinine liberal, only a Smelly Rally like “Occupy Wall Street” instantiates the stuff of rebellion and individualism. (Never mind that the Occupy Crowds were walking ads for the bounty business provides. The clothes they wore, the devices they used to transmit their sub-intelligent message; the food they bought cheaply at the corner stand to sustain their efforts—these were all produced, or brought to market by the invisible hand of the despised John Galts and the derided working people.)
I know not what exactly the oracular Krauthammer said to anger Trump, but it was worth it: “Charles Krauthammer is a totally overrated person … I’ve never met him … He’s a totally overrated guy, doesn’t know what he’s doing. He was totally in favor of the war in Iraq. He wanted to go into Iraq and he wanted to stay there forever. These are totally overrated people.”
Even media mogul Rupert Murdoch moved in on Trump, calling him an embarrassment to his friends and to the country.
Inadvertently, one media strumpet came close to coming clean about the serial failures of analysis among her kind. Wonkette, or Wonkette Emerita, aka Ana Marie Cox, spoke of “the superfluousness of the media’s predictions and its inability to perform the service of making sense of events.” Like Smerconish, Cox is hoping against hope that the little people are having fun at her expense and “are in some way in on the joke” that is Trump. …
… Read the rest. “Trump Should Triangulate” is now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine.