January 25, 2023

Biden And Trump Classified Documents Scandals: Progressive Talking Point Falls Apart

January 25, 2023/ Francis Menton

I have so far avoided weighing in on the Biden and Trump classified documents scandals, but I guess the time has finally come.
I’ve had a “Secret” clearance in my life, and almost all of the “classified” documents I have seen have been of very underwhelming significance. So when the Trump classified document thing blew up with the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago back in August, I was not impressed.
It reeked of something highly likely to be completely devoid of real world significance, but useful to Biden and the left because Trump would be put in a position of not being able to defend himself publicly without disclosing the contents of the documents.
Meanwhile Trump as President had had complete authority to declassify the documents if he wanted, and his position was that he had done so. But even if Trump had a good or even excellent position that he had declassified the documents, he would not take the risk of disclosing their contents to defend himself.
So it seemed like a total freebie for Biden to go on 60 Minutes in September and say “How could anyone be that irresponsible?”
I want to look at two aspects in particular: (1) Do the facts support that Biden was “fully cooperating” with respect to this likely criminal matter involving him? and (2) Does Trump have a reasonable position that documents in his possession with classified “markings” had been declassified?

January 22, 2023

Formerly Respected Organizations; Now Just Foot Soldiers Of Leftist Orthodoxy Enforcement

January 22, 2023/ Francis Menton

As previously mentioned here, I’m currently involved in a legal case where my client — the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council — seeks to compel EPA to reconsider and revoke the 2009 action by which the agency claimed to determine that CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” constitute a “danger to human health and welfare.”
That agency action could well be the single most absurd and destructive thing that the U.S. government has ever done in its 234 year history. The “Endangerment Finding” is the regulatory foundation that underlies all of the more than one hundred initiatives of the Biden Administration to destroy our energy infrastructure, drive up the cost of gasoline, heat, and electricity, and leave the American people impoverished and freezing in the dark.
It goes without saying that the government, under direction from the Biden White House and environmental zealots within EPA, opposes our efforts with every resource at its disposal.
But here’s what does not go without saying: a collection of non-profit organizations who would otherwise be strangers to the litigation has nevertheless sought to “intervene” in the case to support the position of the government.

January 19, 2023

January 19, 2023/ Francis Menton

If you follow developments out of China at all, you have likely noticed a spate of bad news recently. For years, even decades, it seemed that China could do no wrong in its growth toward becoming a major world power: China reported economic growth of 10% and up every year; it was becoming the hub of manufacturing for the entire world; and as its economy grew, its clout on the world stage increased rapidly.
Pundits on the left (and occasionally on the right as well), often with overt admiration for the Chinese model of authoritarian state-directed crony capitalism, widely predicted that China would supplant the U.S. as the world’s leading power some time not too far into the 21st century.
Suddenly that’s looking much less likely. What happened?
The fault lines have been there for a long time, but well-concealed by a regime with tight control over information flow, let alone by a Western press with a deep hatred of the West and not hiding its cheerleading for success of the Chinese model. In the last few months, as conditions have deteriorated, the regime has lost a big piece of its ability to keep the lid on.

January 16, 2023

January 16, 2023/ Jane Menton

Though the [nursing] strike has since ended, my thought when I read the headlines was: Here is a legitimate concern: For years, there has been a looming shortage of healthcare workers, and of nurses specifically.
It is possible, maybe even likely, that the nursing union might exaggerate claims of a looming staffing shortage in order to strengthen its negotiating positions.
However, I maintain that we have enough social indicators from Gen Z and Millenials – that is, people in the 20-45 age range – to wonder what might happen if there comes a time when there are not enough people willing to work in industries that require difficult physical labor or emotional hardship.

January 15, 2023

January 15, 2023/ Francis Menton

My last post from January 13 critiqued a post written by Viscount Christopher Monckton of Benchley, that had appeared at Watts Up With That on January 11. Lord Monckton requested the opportunity to reply to my post, which I granted to him. What follows is the reply written by Lord Monckton:
Climate skepticism has four failings: a lack of elementary professionalism; a tendency to be over-skeptical of both sides of the argument; a striking absence of the intuitive ability of the mathematician, who wanders cheerfully and competently from the concrete to the theoretical and back; and unjustifiable discourtesy towards the scientific labors of fellow-skeptics.

January 13, 2023

January 13, 2023/ Francis Menton

A couple of days ago (January 11, apparently shortly after midnight) on Watts Up With That, Christopher Monckton published a piece that ran under the headline “The Final Nail in the Coffin Of ‘Renewable’ Energy.” The piece contained a short and apparently elegant mathematical proof — which Monckton attributes to a guy named Douglas Pollock — of a proposition that Monckton stated as follows:

In plain English, the maximum possible fraction of total grid generation contributable by unreliables turns out to be equal to the average fraction of the nameplate capacity of those reliables [sic — should be “unreliables”?] that is realistically achievable under real-world conditions.
My immediate reaction was that that couldn’t possibly be right. . . .
This matter illustrates why, when I dabble in math in my posts, I try to stick to simple arithmetic.