Latvian Political Monitor

NA wants to receive the Order of the Three Stars from the Lithuanian government for destroying Latvia's transit industry! NA Interior Minister Dombrava wants to completely close the Latvia–Belarus border crossing point so that all Latvian people and cargo transport would have to travel to Belarus through Lithuania, which has not closed its border crossing points with Belarus!

⚽️ Ints Megnis interviews the head of the Saeima Sports Subcommittee @DDaugavietis45 about the changes that the new Sports Law brings from August 1 and the challenges that still await the sports sector in Latvia. https://t.co/9SkAdQvWe8

If the government @AndrisKulbergs supports this NA (Ministry of Interior) initiative, then they seem to have seriously ‘tied you up’. But on the other hand, that's good, because then NA can hope for 1% in Latgale. What does the green border have to do with illegal immigrants? About 45k Latvian citizens travel back and forth each year. They will still go through Lithuania. What will we achieve? We'll load ours onto Lithuania, because unlike us they have enough resources 😀. Moreover, the 🇱🇹 border with 🇧🇾 is 500 km longer than ours. And they will still thank us, skim the cash (fuel, eateries, vignettes, little taxes etc.). Not to mention cargo (https://t.co/gFTUkUoLwZ). I understand it's pre-election time, but there should be a bit of common sense… 😀😀 And all this a week after Estonian border guards rushed to help Latvian colleagues. We're really living the high life… possibly a prelude to the neighbors soon starting to build Rail Baltica for us too :)

⚠️ While we in Latvia continue to fuss in our own duck pond over provincial problems, interesting processes are happening in the USA. The 'famous' Anthony Fauci was questioned in the US Senate regarding his role during the pandemic. The hearing was led by Republican Senator Rand Paul, who believes that Fauci may have misled the US Congress and the public about the pandemic and its laboratory origin. According to publicly available information, Fauci refused to answer the senator's questions, citing the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, indicating that his testimony could be used against him in a criminal proceeding. Media report that he invoked Fifth Amendment rights more than 100 times. When will Latvia finally have a fair and independent investigation into COVID-era decisions and violations, the consequences of which society still feels today? Who will take political responsibility for the decisions made? Who will conduct this investigation in Latvia – those same people who made and covered up these decisions then, or others? Who will stand before the court and sit on the defendant's bench? We and Maija Armaneva have not forgotten. We remember all those who had a hand in these decisions and hope that society has a goldfish memory and will forget about it.

@wannax_j As I mentioned before, I find these compensation arrangements inappropriate. It is not about poverty or wealth. It is the principle.

Small-scale embezzlement of taxpayers' money happens when you settle into little positions, little projects, little feeding troughs. But with equally noble intentions and heads held high, proper large-scale embezzlement happens in the big “investment projects”. I believe that the state should not invest in anything that is not public infrastructure accessible to many competitors, or an extraordinary, one-in-a-million, strategic exceptional case. Any money that the state (or municipality) gives to a specific private company because it is in some way special is, in my world, robbing the taxpayers. And whether it is done through some agency, fund, with a tender or without — it makes no difference. The state may buy a service where it does not care who supplies it, but the state must not pretend that it knows it is fair to support a particular company in a project special to that particular company. That is the most ordinary market distortion, which already at the moment of “investment” makes the supported company inefficient, all alternatives less possible, and all taxpayers poorer. Taxpayers' money is not and never will be the same as money pooled by private investors. Taxes are not an accounting side effect. Taxpayers' money is money taken literally by coercive force. The right must never forget that. Therefore any use of taxpayers' money is morally justified only in cases where it would be justified for a village sheriff, threatening some random passer-by with a gun, to rob him for the same purpose. Some time ago I listened to a philosophers' conversation a couple of years old, in which they discussed the origin of moral norms. I am not a philosopher, only a philosophiser, but I could not help laughing (and soon turning off the silly recording) when I heard academic philosophers discuss the considerations by which a starving person simply does not take what they need from a shop. They focused on the shop visitor's value system, but seemed to have completely forgotten about institutions. Namely, about the shop as an institution that can exist only in a society whose members do not take from the shelf without paying for everything they badly need. Namely, that once it were the other way around, shops would cease to exist. And that the rational, critical thinking of a member of society, the number of books read, or any value system articulable in an interview has absolutely no significance. Because a shop can exist only where mostly neither “thinking” nor “non-thinking” people steal. With the state as a coercive monopoly maintained by taxpayers, it is similar — it can exist only where state power is not used for stealing. That is nothing that should be especially taught in good governance courses. It is taught from childhood in the form of a simple commandment — thou shalt not steal. Without any elaborate proofs of the law's truth. Because there simply is no proof of this law. It is an arbitrary, politically adopted (recognised as beneficial by evolutionary experience) law. Which makes private property and therefore Western developed civilisation possible. Such a law may also not be in force, and then there would be a different arrangement. But count on it: then Latvia as a sovereign state of free citizens cannot exist.

Kučinskis: An assessment of remote work practice in state administration is necessary

Yesterday morning, after a long time, I turned on the Latvian radio program 'Labrīt', and there, almost as if they were expecting me—right after a few minutes, while talking about the film 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', they teach such wisdom. Which experts sleeping overnight in the LSM studios count as 'radically right-wing'? https://t.co/JE3uNCLDoK

25 states challenge in court the customs tariffs imposed by the Trump administration

@wannax_j I tend to agree with you that all sorts of compensations should be removed. Deputy salaries, however, are not large. Of course, it should be viewed relatively. For me personally, the salary issue was a big consideration before I decided to run. Deputies should also be allowed to work in the professions from which they come.

@jtaurens Participate yourself in political organizations, movements, think tanks. Give your quality, knowledge and contribution. Sorry if I'm wrong and you already do that.

@B03091315B @LeilaRasima I have no reason not to believe her. Not because of declarations, but because we have mutual friends. Latvia is small.

As opponents in the election should rightly be put down to the ground, but in my view a very correct and understandable explanation from @LeilaRasima 👍

Globally, economists discuss that remote work in reasonable amounts increases productivity and improves demographics. Meanwhile in Latvia, it is a topic with which to gain cheap popularity 😤