Category: Government (Page 8 of 13)

WSJ: Why Does Elon Musk Keep Talking About Merit?

December 23, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

For months and months, the world’s richest man has been talking about the “woke mind virus”—let’s call it WMV for short. He describes it as a threat to “modern civilization” and says those concerns motivated his decision more than a year ago to buy the social-media platform now known as X.

Musk is the richest person in the world and with Tesla and SpaceX, owns two companies that dominate their highly technical market sectors. He also owns companies that may be critical to the future in the fields of boring tunnels, artificial intelligence and a brain/computer interface. Since Musk is bringing us the future more than anyone else on Earth, it may be worth trying to comprehend his message.

When it comes to how he defines that threat, however, he has been vague in public—painting a picture of something akin to hysterical groupthink by liberals against merit-based achievement and free speech, a catchall for what he expresses disagreement with.

That seem pretty clear. While a few large investment companies, corporate media and politicians are banging on about diversity, inclusion and equity, it may be worth asking where they see DIE taking Western democracies.

With recent congressional testimony and charges of plagiarism against the current president of Harvard, it seems obvious that she is a diversity hire with scant accomplishments to be account for her lofty position. How much of the rest of our institutions are led by unqualified people who are above accountability?

Musk is arguing for merit in judging applicants and with his obvious success, it’s worth considering his opinion.

Biden Spends $10 Billion on Another Waste of Time

December 9, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

Biden putting $10 billion into high speed passenger trains.

This is another bad idea that we will have to spend a trillion dollars on before we give up.

I’ve ridden the Shinkansen in Japan and the LGV in France, and enjoyed both. The US is not Japan or France. America has a well developed rail system, and we use it to carry freight.

There is a high speed passenger rail project in California. The cost is estimated to be a quarter-billion dollars per mile. Biden could spend our money to put down 40 miles of high speed rail or he could have one nuclear power plant built.

WSJ: Ohio State is Corrupted with DEI.

November 22, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

WSJ: DEI at Ohio State

In February 2021, then-president Kristina Johnson launched an initiative to hire 50 professors whose work focused on race and “social equity” and “100 underrepresented and BIPOC hires” (the acronym stands for black, indigenous and people of color). These reports show what higher education’s outsize investment in “diversity, equity and inclusion” looks like in practice. Ohio State sacrificed both academic freedom and scholarly excellence for the sake of a narrowly construed vision of diversity.

Mike Johnson (R-La.) publicly released footage from the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

November 19, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

No matter how you vote or what you think of the events at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, it unconscionable that all video had not been immediately made public.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) publicly released footage from the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

House Republicans had the authority to release the video, and they did not.

This video looks like American citizens were entrapped. It’s a small sample, but for the stability of the country, all video should have been made available many months ago.

Car makers will eventually limit the performance of all cars.

November 18, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

AutoBlog: NTSB calls for Speed Limiters on Cars

After investigating a three-vehicle accident that happened in Las Vegas in January 2022, the NTSB is again recommending a few measures to curb speeding, one of them being the “need for intelligent speed assistance (ISA) technology and countermeasures including interlock program for repeat speeding offenders.”

We already have plenty of laws, but DA’s and the DOJ choose to enforce them selectively. It is irresponsible of the NTSB to make a major policy recommendation that will effect every car buyer in America based on one horrendous car accident.

The NTSB says it is only making a recommendation. If this gains traction, all automakers will comply based on the threat of lawsuits. The entire Covid Shut Down disaster was based on mere recommendations by Anthony Fauci. A generation of children were emotionally and intellectually damaged because school districts covered their asses by following the recommendations.

When car companies start designing cars to work against the car owners, it won’t stop.

Republicans currently are in the majority in the House of Representatives. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee should hold hearings to question the NTSB to learn who is responsible for this governmental overreach.

WSJ: Oregon Realizes that Decriminalizing Hard Drugs was a Mistake

November 12, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

WSJ: Oregon Decriminalized Hard Drugs

EUGENE, Ore.—Soon after Oregon became the first state to decriminalize all drugs in 2020, Officer Jose Alvarez stopped arresting people for possession and began giving out tickets with the number for a rehab helpline.

People sprawled on sidewalks and using fentanyl with no fear of consequence have become a common sight in cities such as Eugene and Portland. Business owners and local leaders are upset, but so are liberal voters who hoped decriminalization would lead to more people getting help. In reality, few drug users are taking advantage of new state-funded rehabilitation programs.

Anybody could have seen this coming, but somehow, they still think they are smarter than the rest of us. In Econ 100, you learn that people respond to incentives. Remove disincentives to take hard drugs, and more people take hard drugs.

The Times: The UK government is not as corrupt as the US government.

November 10, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

Suella Braverman Commentary

The Home Secretary of the UK wrote an interesting commentary for The Times. It’s interesting because the Home Secretary is the senior minister in charge of law enforcement, national security and immigration. The security service, MI5, reports to Suella Braverman.

Her commentary addresses how law enforcement handles protests in the UK, but the essential problem occurs in the US as well.

Right-wing and nationalist protesters who engage in aggression are rightly met with a stern response yet pro-Palestinian mobs displaying almost identical behaviour are largely ignored, even when clearly breaking the law? I have spoken to serving and former police officers who have noted this double standard.

Except for the spelling of “behavior”, that paragraph could have come from anyone in America paying attention to how some cities handle disruptive protests.

It took two days for articles like this started running in major UK newspapers.

The only difference between the US and the UK, is that in the US, the head of the DOJ would not write a frank commentary like this. Our DOJ has become a partisan weapon.

WSJ: Old Coal Mine could hold Billions in Rare Earths

November 9, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 2 Comments

WSJ: Old Coal Mine has Billions in Rare Earths

Twelve years ago, former Wall Street banker Randall Atkins bought an old coal mine outside Sheridan, Wyo., sight unseen, for about $2 million.

Several years after Atkins bought the Brook Mine, government researchers came around asking if they could run some tests to see if the ground contained something called “rare-earth elements.”

That government researchers are looking out for America is good news. Yeah, that’s pretty cynical, but recall President Reagan’s joke.

“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help. “

The deposit was found in conjunction with researchers at the Energy Department’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. They spent years developing a model that combines data with artificial intelligence to predict unconventional deposits of rare earths and critical minerals, and it forecast sizable deposits in the Powder River Basin in northeast Wyoming, which includes the Ramaco site.

Rare earths minerals are a strategic resource. Most of the cool technology relies upon them. Those really powerful little magnets are made from rare earths. China mines most of the rare earth minerals and they are not a friend and ally.

It’s good to see the Department of Energy working to make America less reliant on foreign trade. I hope the mine owner, Randall Atkins, becomes fabulously wealthy.

NYT: Trump Leads in 5 Critical States

November 5, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

NYT: Trump in the Lead

Don’t get cocky. The election process is still shaky in many states.

President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found.

Biden is clearly a feeble dotard and nobody is saying who is actually making presidential decisions. The election is between Trump and the people behind the curtain.

It’s interesting the Ohio doesn’t show up as a battleground state anymore.

This election will be interesting in that the primaries won’t matter. Neither Biden or Trump are likely to get any primary challenges, hold any debates or present any policies. Trump could be in jail and win just as Biden could be hidden away in his eldercare facility and win.

The old Democratic standbys can’t be counted on.

Voters under 30 — a group that strongly voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 — said they trusted Mr. Trump more on the economy by an extraordinary 28 percentage-point margin after years of inflation and now high interest rates that have made mortgages far less affordable.

Black voters — long a bulwark for Democrats and for Mr. Biden — are now registering 22 percent support in these states for Mr. Trump, a level unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times.

Voters under 30 favor Mr. Biden by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Mr. Trump’s edge in rural regions.

For the most part:

Legal immigrants are not in favor of an unsecure Southern border.

Urban Blacks did not burn down their own neighborhoods when Antifa and BLM came to town to riot.

Women don’t want men in their restrooms and locker rooms and would like their daughters to have the opportunity to compete fairly.

Young people can be chaotic and irresponsible, but aspire to join a functioning society when they eventually dummy up.

WSJ: Americans in a Rotten Mood.

November 3, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

WSJ: The Economy is Great

So if the economy is so good, why are Americans so gloomy? Confidence readings are depressed. Some 69% of respondents to a Wall Street Journal survey in August said the country is headed in the wrong direction. President Biden’s approval ratings are mired around or below 40%, and approval for his handling of the economy is even lower.

When the government and media have been lying to us about everything else, why should we believe them about the economy?