The Chinese government has tightened its rules concerning foreign singers and others who come to China to perform. This is in the wake of what Elton John did last November: He dedicated a concert in Beijing to Ai Weiwei, the artist and dissenter.
What Sir Elton did was reminiscent of what Björk did in 2008: At the end of a concert in Shanghai, she sang a song called “Declare Independence,” and shouted “Tibet” several times.
Sir Elton has a habit of dissidence, or, let’s say, nonconformity. He went ahead with a concert in Israel, despite pressure to boycott the country, as other performers were doing. He even sang at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding.
He has — to borrow Björk’s words — declared independence.
* During his campaign against Mitt Romney, President Obama repeatedly identified Ugland House, an office building in the Cayman Islands, as the seat of “the largest tax scam in the world.” And then he nominated Jack Lew, a former Citibank executive with investments domiciled at Ugland House, as his new Treasury secretary.
Before his nomination to Treasury, Lew served as President Obama’s chief of staff, and like every Obama chief of staff before him, he had a Wall Street résumé. Lew received a nearly $1 million payday from Citigroup just before the bank went to Washington begging for a bailout. He then invested in a Citigroup venture-capital fund based in the Caymans, where corporate profits receive gentle treatment.
Lew broke no laws and argues that “the tax code should be constructed to encourage investment in the United States.” Funny: Mitt Romney made the same argument, and President Obama’s allies labeled him — let us use the precise phrase — an “economic traitor.”
Not Scrooge McDuck, but a traitor. President Obama should either explain why it is acceptable to put this traitor in the top job at Treasury or issue an apology to Mitt Romney.
— The editors of National Review, writing in the magazine’s March 3 issue