Today's Scorecard For New York's Kangaroo Legal System

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Today's Scorecard For New York's Kangaroo Legal System

  • The kangaroos’ request shown above, as reported yesterday on X by the Babylon Bee, may not be completely justified with respect to the U.S. federal justice system. It remains to be seen how the prosecutions of our ex-President play out in that arena.

  • However, the kangaroos’ request is 100% justified with respect to the justice system of the State of New York. Here in New York, the recent actions of our prosecutors and legal system make “kangaroo courts” look wise and sensible by comparison.

  • Somewhere in the mid-2010s, New York prosecutors and regulators decided that all previous norms and ethical restraints had been abolished, and it was now OK to use all resources of their offices to bring down disfavored political targets by any and every means they could think of.

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So How Are Things Going In China?

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  • How are things going in China?

  • That is a question of great interest to everyone in the world, both inside China and out. Of all countries, China has either the largest or second-largest population (neck and neck with India at about 1.4 billion), and an economy that is a relatively close second to the United States in absolute production (although less than 20% as prosperous on the basis of per capita GDP).

  • China’s economy has clearly grown rapidly since the 1980s, but there is conflicting information as to whether that growth is continuing, or perhaps stalling out. If China is continuing its rapid economic expansion under the increasingly authoritarian regime of Xi Jinping, its enhanced economic strength could pose a growing threat to its Asian neighbors and indeed to the rest of the world.

  • But other information suggests that China’s economy is in grave distress, and that the country has entered into what could be a period of extended contraction and decline.

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New York City's Ongoing "Affordable Housing" Follies

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  • “Affordable housing.” Who could be against that? Surely an energetic, well-intentioned government ought to be able to come up with some programs or initiatives to make housing more affordable for low and moderate-income residents.

  • In practice, the State and City of New York have been pursuing the Holy Grail of “affordable housing” through government compulsion for close to a century.

  • After all that, what we have is the most expensive housing market in the country. Somehow everything they try to generate more “affordable housing” proves only to make the situation worse.

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Is Beef Production A Major Contributor To Climate Change?

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Is Beef Production A Major Contributor To Climate Change?

  • Undoubtedly, by this time in your life you have read a hundred times, or maybe a thousand, that beef production is a “major contributor” to climate change. It’s one of those narratives that has become a continuous drumbeat in the progressive press.

  • Probably, you have had no reason to question it. Without thinking about it, you likely assume that this narrative is probably true.

  • But there is good reason to think critically about this one. Among the various scare stories used to take further control of your life, this is one of the more important. With the war against fossil fuels, there is at least the pretense that their use can be reduced or eliminated without major effect on your lifestyle — i.e., just replace the energy from fossil fuels with “cheap” electricity from wind and sun. There is no such pretense with the war on beef. The end game is unabashedly to reduce your standard of living by taking away one of the most important and best parts of your diet.

  • So is it true that beef production is a major contributor to climate change?

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What Is The Most Pernicious Example Of "Misinformation" Currently Circulating?

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  • “Misinformation” — It has been one of the most-used buzzwords of the past few years. The “misinformation” label has been applied by advocates on both sides of the political divide in the attempt to discredit their opponents.

  • Numerous assertions that have dominated the news cycle for months or even years have ultimately proven to be completely false, that is, “misinformation.” Examples of such assertions that have been established as “misinformation” include the assertion that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election; the assertion that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian plant; and the assertion that the Covid virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan.

  • After the thorough discrediting of so many false narratives during these years, there remain plenty still out there that richly deserve the “misinformation” label. But of those, which is the very worst, the very most pernicious? Here is my candidate: the assertion that the cheapest way to generate electricity today is with wind and solar generators.

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