Author Archive: Stephen Green
June 24, 2019
June 22, 2019
NEW FROM THE VODKAWIFE™: Destined: Fated, Book One (A Romantic Adventure).
June 21, 2019
INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE: Louisiana Hair Braiders File Lawsuit to Untangle State’s Unnecessary Braiding License.
Lynn Schofield, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, experienced firsthand the harms of Louisiana’s unnecessary red tape. She moved to Louisiana in 2000 and opened Afro Touch, the state’s first salon dedicated solely to hair braiding. It was so successful, she expanded her business to four locations with more than 20 employees. But that all changed in 2003 when the Board created the braiding license. Braiding without a license is punishable by fines of up to $5,000 per incident. Unable to fully staff her salons, Lynn could no longer expand her business, and instead was forced to shut down salons.
“I want to grow my business, but it’s impossible with Louisiana’s rules,” Lynn said. Today, only one salon remains.
“It is unconstitutional to license something as safe and common as hair braiding,” said IJ Attorney Jaimie Cavanaugh. “Economic liberty—or the right to earn a living in the profession of one’s choosing—is a right protected by the Louisiana Constitution.”
More like this, please.
SAD: Cuba Ration Lines Grow Tense as Economy Flails. “On island hit by U.S. sanctions and Venezuela downturn, Cubans flash back to post-Soviet hardships.”
Pushed by the implosion of top ally Venezuela and sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, Cuba has driven into an economic ditch. The government has tightened state rations. Residents stand in lines for hours to buy scarce basic goods such as eggs, flour and chicken.
For many Cubans, ration lines and ostrich farms recall the grim “Special Period” in the 1990s after the collapse of its benefactor, the Soviet Union. As the Communist-run island endured near famine conditions, residents devoured cats and fried “steaks” made of breaded grapefruit rind.
“We are starting to go into a new special period,” said Osmary Armas, 45, who owns a neoclassical mansion turned bed-and-breakfast that has been largely bereft of U.S. visitors in recent months. “Things are very bad.”
For years, American officials made no secret of their belief that if the U.S. turned the economic screws, the Cuban government would be forced out. But the Cuban regime has had nearly six decades of experience defying the U.S., administering scarcity and dishing out repression.
Cuba’s police state is intact. The government has scant opposition, and commands the loyalties of many.
Is there so little opposition because the Castroite police state is so effective, because people have been conditioned to believe that scarcity is normal, or is this a time to embrace the healing power of “and?”
FOR SALE: A hovercraft built to look just like a DeLorean.
Doc Emmett Brown smiles.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: It’s Another Florida Man Friday.
NEWS YOU CAN USE? Everything You Need To Know About the Chinese Military If You Don’t Read Chinese. “The Pentagon has released three very detailed reports this year on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. They are exceptional sources at a critical time in the modernization of China’s military.”
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF: A Black Eye for the Columbia Journalism Review.
Last month, the CJR published an article by trans activist Parker Molloy essentially demanding that when it comes to the issue of male-bodied individuals seeking to compete in female athletics, journalists should present only one side of the issue—on the basis that naysayers don’t “have all the facts,” and their words “could be used to reinforce ignorance.” These are thinly coded appeals to de facto self-censorship, and it is strange to see them published by an outlet whose nominal purpose is to promote excellence in journalism.
This month, CJR stepped over the line again. And this time, the resultant hit on the CJR brand was worse. Molloy’s piece was torqued and one-sided. But it did not contain any actual errors. The same was not true of Jared Holt’s June 12 CJR piece, entitled Right-wing publications launder an anti-journalist smear campaign, which attacks a study by researcher Eoin Lenihan that shows a close ideological connection between Antifa and the journalists who follow Antifa most closely on Twitter.
As a Quillette editor, I initially was interested to see what Holt had come up with, since he often has performed valuable work as an investigator with the progressive advocacy group People For the American Way, and because Quillette is featured as one of the “right-wing publications” that allegedly served to “launder” Lenihan’s work.
But, to quote a headline from last week, Holt’s article “backfired.”
Read the whole thing.
Hat tip to Will Collier, who tweeted, “The Columbia Journalism Review serving partisan and ideological ends is not a surprise. @VodkaPundit and I had a notable dust-up with the late Steve Lovelady, then executive editor of the CJR and not exactly impartial 15 years ago.”
FLASHBACK: Vegetarians are ‘less healthy and have a lower quality of life than meat-eaters’, scientists say.
I’m reposting this in case you haven’t yet made any weekend grilling plans. For your health.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I don’t think this is actually thuggery, since legislatures generally can compel the attendance of absent members. (I’ve written about this before). Presumably, the state police would be deputized by the sergeant-at-arms or somesuch. But Ann Althouse notes the shifting media narrative here: “They were ‘stars’ when they were Democrats. And a bad old Republican — remember Bill O’Reilly? — had to be hypothetically dragged into the picture to give it a good-and-evil dimension. With the Republicans absconding, in Oregon, the fleebaggers are automatically bad and the Democrats — ready to legislate and deprived of the quorum — are the easy good guys. The narrative clicks into place.” As usual.
I HAD BEEN ASSURED THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: That Story About Kids Growing Horns Because of Smartphones Is Fake News.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Iran’s Long Game, and Trump’s Too.
UPDATE: Also read Richard Fernandez this morning. “US energy independence has given Washington a far more powerful option than merely reprising an updated version of Preying Mantis. From a position of self-sufficiency Trump might use the prospect of oil disruption to organize ‘international convoys’ among the energy dependent as a kind of FONOPS in the Gulf. Or it could harness the fears of the Asian giants to add teeth to its sanctions regime against Iran. Either outcome would be both devastating to Tehran yet nonkinetic.”
Now that’s what I call smart diplomacy.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump Pulls Back from Iran Strike, Media & Democrats Confused. “Let’s be honest, there are plenty of things the U.S. can do that don’t involve invasion and bombs: bank accounts can be emptied, people can disappear. It can be very dangerous to be an Iranian agent walking freely around Latin America and Africa. Things happen. ‘No comment’.”
FASTER? PLEASE! DoD Presses the Accelerator on Hypersonic Weapons.
Hypersonic weapons have several advantages over existing cruise and ballistic missiles. Because they fly so fast, they can close on their targets in a very short period of time. Compared to slower weapons, their extremely high speed means that these weapons can evade or outrun any existing air and missile defenses. Some hypersonic weapons are so fast and maneuverable that they are unlikely to even be seen by existing radars.
Aircraft capable of hypersonic flight will be able to penetrate layered anti-aircraft defenses. During its career as one of the Air Force’s premier Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms, the venerable SR-71, which could fly at speeds up to Mach 3, was fired upon unsuccessfully hundreds of times. There are reports that a new hypersonic reconnaissance plane capable of cruising at Mach 6 is in the works.
Senior U.S. defense officials have publicly stated that Russia and China are ahead of us in this new arms race.
These things have the potential to be so destabilizing that you really don’t want to be the third guy on your block to get one.
AND AGAIN: Personal data of 2.9 million people leaked from Desjardins. “Quebec-based credit union federation learned of data breach from police.”
AVIK ROY: Trump could revolutionize the private health insurance market.
Enter President Trump and his team at the National Economic Council, led by Larry Kudlow. The council found an elegant way to give employers the opportunity to voluntarily convert their health benefits from a defined benefit into a defined contribution. For example, an employer could fund an HRA for each worker and their family, which they could then use to shop for a plan that best suits their needs.
The administration estimates that as many as 800,000 employers — mostly smaller businesses — will choose this option, expanding health care choices for 11 million workers in the next decade. These employers will benefit from having fiscal certainty over their health expenditures. And workers will benefit from being able to choose their coverage and take it from job to job.
Furthermore, if those estimates are right, the new rule could dramatically expand the market for individually purchased health insurance, encouraging more plans to enter the market and lowering premiums for all participants. The White House estimates that the rule could expand the number of Americans with health insurance coverage by as many as 800,000.
The Trump HRA rule should be seen as the beginning — not the end — of reforms to improve the quality of private health insurance. Congress also needs to repair the individual market for health insurance by reforming Obamacare-era regulations that punish young and healthy people for buying coverage.
Faster, please.
June 20, 2019
SATIRE… OR IS IT? Ocasio-Cortez Gets Head Stuck In Bucket, Journalists Rush To Explain Why It Was Actually A Genius Move. “Most people don’t have her scientific curiosity and intelligence,” said MSNBC pundit Chris Hayes. “Someone incurious like Trump would never look at a bucket and ask ‘Could my head fit inside that?’ But Ocasio-Cortez dives into such questions head first.”