The View from Right Field

Illinois State Employees Wrongly Claim Money Under Paycheck Protection Program and State’s Reaction Is: “Move Along. Nothing to See Here.”

The Chicago Tribune had an article yesterday about reports from the Illinois Office of Executive Inspector General detailing instances of state employees, especially in the Department of Human Services, fraudulently claiming money under the Covid era Paycheck Protection Program.

What surprised me, however, was that this report and the information about the fraud came from the Office of Executive Inspector General, instead of from the agencies themselves.  I would have thought the Governor and the agencies, including the Department of Human Services, would have been interested in whether the money they were distributing was going to the people it was intended to go to.  And that they would have wanted to stop this kind of fraud and report on their efforts, to let us know they care about doing their job.

The Coming Isolationism of the Progressive Left

Constanze Stelzenmuller wrote in the Financial Times this past Tuesday, in an article entitled “Don’t relax. Europe – the US hard right isn’t finished yet,” that the isolationist Republican right is not going away just because Congress has finally has approved more aid to  Ukraine.  However, in warning Europe about the staying power of so-called “national conservatives” on the Republican right, Ms. Stelzenmuller fails to mention the risks from the progressive left of the Democratic Party.

While almost all Democrats in Congress supported aid to Ukraine, one wonders how many would have done so if a Republican, like one of the Bushes, had been president.  Without a Democratic president leading the way, especially an old-style Democrat like Joe Biden, lots of Democrats in the future will prefer to focus on social problems at home, instead of military and defense matters abroad.

Kenny Holtzman, RIP

Kenny Holtzman, who pitched for the Cubs from 1965 through 1971 and 1978-89 passed away yesterday.  I have so many memories of Kenny.  Let me mention two.

The first was September 25, 1966.  It was the game he pitched against Sandy Koufax.  Kenny won, of course, taking a no-hitter into the ninth inning before finally giving up two hits.  I wrote about it here.  Especially see the transcript of the Old Style commercial from 1988.

Immigration, Migration, Asylum: Legal and Otherwise.

The Wall Street Journal had a long article on the situation at the US’s southern border on Tuesday.¹  The Financial Times had one on Europe’s problems Thursday.²  The thing that is clear from both articles is that the asylum systems in both the United States and Europe are no longer fit for purpose.³ 

The system we have in the United States doesn’t work in a time of global travel and smartphones.  It was designed, and its standards were set, for a time when the number of people seeking asylum was limited.  Most people didn’t know their options, and even if they did, few of them could travel to where they could exercise them.  The number of asylum seekers was small, and the standards were set on that basis.

“Leaders are not mere politicians and this is why”

The following letter appeared in the Letters section of the Financial Times today (April 5)¹:

“Janan Ganesh concludes his column on the difficulties of getting Europe to spend more on defence (Opinion, March 27) with a quote attributed to what he calls ‘another European leader, in another era, in another context’. I believe he was referring to Jean-Claude Juncker, the then prime minister of Luxembourg, who quipped: ‘We all know what to do. But we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.’

The Coming Constitutional Crisis of 2024 – And American Foreign Policy

In a recent news review,¹ one of the commentators said that, because Trump has made the world part of our political fracas, the political rhetoric now, during the campaign. may be more dangerous for America, and foreign relations. than what comes after November, when the election is over.

I disagree.  I’m afraid the result won’t be known – or, perhaps more accurately, won’t be accepted by the “losing” side – and the things will heat up even more after November 7.  I worry that the election will result in a constitutional crisis greater than any we have seen since 1860-61 – because, no matter who wins, the other side won’t accept it.² 

If Trump loses, he and his supporters will say the election was stolen.  Former President Trump is already saying the election will be rigged.  We know what some Trump supporters did on January 6, 2021.  Who knows what they may do this time.  I understand that last time Mr. Trump was President and that gave him things he could try to do.  But this time, his people may be more upset.

Joe Biden’s Priorities: Gasoline Prices > Ukraine

The Financial Times reported on Friday:

“The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warming that the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation, according to three people familiar with the discussions. …

Washington is also concerned that if Ukraine keeps hitting Russian facilities, including many that are hundreds of miles from the border, Russia could retaliate by lashing out at infrastructure relied on by the west. …

Joe Biden: Getting Foreign Policy Wrong for 50 Years

In 2014, a former cabinet official from both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations wrote that Joe Biden had "been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."¹  Even though this official likes President Biden as a person and has said President Biden “a man of integrity,” he reaffirmed his statement in an interview in May of 2019. 

And President Biden has continued his string of mistakes and bad decisions since he got into office.  The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disaster.  President Biden was left with a terrible situation by Donald Trump.  The Trump administration signed what was basically a surrender agreement with the Taliban on February 29, 2020.  While President Biden has said the Trump agreement left him no choice but to go forward with the withdrawal/surrender, that’s not true.  President Biden reversed all kinds of Trump administration decisions.  He could have changed this one, too, but he didn’t want to.  He wanted to get out of Afghanistan, and so we did.  It was the Biden administration that organized, or rather didn’t organize, the withdrawal.  If the withdrawal was a disaster, and if it has damaged the United States’ reputation for reliability and competence abroad, then that was on President Biden and his administration.

Voting When It Doesn’t Matter. Because I Was Proud To Be Voting for Nikki Haley.

Back in January I wrote a post about “The Advantage of Living in Illinois.”  As I said, there aren’t many advantages of living in Illinois (other than grandchildren and the Cubs), but there is one: In a Biden-Trump presidential race, if you live in Illinois, you don’t have to vote for either one of them.  Biden is going to win Illinois, and as I said, “one vote, or even one hundred thousand votes, isn’t going to make a difference in the 2024 Presidential race in Illinois.”

So, on that basis, why did I go out and vote in the Republican primary in Illinois today?  Donald Trump has already won the Republican nomination, and Joe Biden going to win Illinois’s seventeen electoral votes in November.  So why did I vote? 

What’s the Matter With China?

As we look at all of the problems in the United States and wonder how we are going to deal with them, perhaps we should give a thought to a country with just as many problems: China.  Recently, I have been watching shows and reading articles about the economic problems in China.  Experts and pundits have been asking what China should do about economic growth, the stagnate real estate sector, youth un- and under-employment, deflation, etc.   And then they go on to offer all kinds of proposed policies and solutions, most of them straight out of standard Western economics theory. 

Which means they won’t be implemented because they miss the main point.  The most important thing to Chinese President Xi Jinping is not solving this problem or that.  It is keeping control.  It's maintaining, and strengthening, the power and role of the Chinese Communist Party – and his own control over the CCP.  President Xi may be a committed Communist and dedicated Marxist-Leninist, but more importantly, he wants to keep control.