Zelensky To Be Admired But Not Emulated, Inflation Naming Rights, Berkeley And Its Environment
Wither Patriotism
Admiration for Volodymyr Zelenky is one of the few bipartisan features of American political life. That agreement, unfortunately, would not extend to a unified reaction to a similar assault on America. A Quinnipiac poll found that 52% of Democrats would leave the country rather than stay and fight, while only “a pathetic 40 % said they would stick around.” Some 25% of Republicans said they “would flee”, while 68% said they would “stand their ground.”
Worse. Respondents were asked to envision a foreign invader on their own front porch, relates the WSJ. And they could easily have lied. The difference between Democrats and Republicans, hypothesizes Matthew Hennessey, a WSJ deputy editor, “Could be a reflection of the partisan skew in the nation’s distribution of small arms.”
That would come as no surprise to the drafters of the Second Amendment.
Success Has Many Fathers, Inflation Is An Orphan
President Biden is going to some lengths to pin the blame on inflation on Vladimir Putin. Never mind that prices headed up long before Putin’s troops headed to Ukraine. Voters say they prefer Republicans to Democrats to save them from inflation by a 45-to-37% margin. That would be enough to persuade Biden to willingly ceded naming rights to Putin.
Biden has already announced that the highest-wage companies would receive preferential treatment when government contracts are awarded. He is now directing the government to recompute (raise) the way wages are computed when determining the “prevailing” rate that contractors must meet. And lest foreign suppliers can deliver the goods at lower rates than U.S. companies, only the latter can compete for the business.
These steps, says AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, will protect construction workers from “rampant wage theft.” How they will dampen inflation is not revealed.
Berkeley vs. Environmentalists
The University of California, Berkeley, home of many famed radical moments, has a publication available to teach you how to be woke. One of the “discipline emphases within Berkeley’s graduate Environmental Science, Policy and Management program is Society & Environment.
Recently, a trial judge ruled with plaintiffs complaining that the University has admitted too many students without considering the negative environmental effects, thereby violating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The trial judge ordered admissions limited. The CEQA was signed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1970 to require environmental review of new housing projects before their construction, and is said by its critics to be a tool for anti-growth activists.
State senator Scott Weiner, a Democrat whose district includes San Francisco, has introduced a bill that would exempt many student housing projects from environmental review under the CEQA. It is not known whether this controversy is included as a case study in Berkeley’s Environmental Science, Policy and Management program.