Monthly Archives: March 2024

The Forgotten Man

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A recent Wall Street Journal editorial correctly pointed out the costs to us ordinary Americans of a variety of Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden administration plans. The editors were particularly concerned with the administration’s plans for bank and credit card fees that these institutions charge individuals who overdraw their account or make late payments on their credit cards and that these institutions charge businesses for using the various ATM and credit card payment networks.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency proximately responsible for the latest round of regulations capping those fees at markedly lower levels,

acknowledges[] the lower penalty may cause more borrowers to pay late, and as a result incur higher “interest charges, penalty rates, credit reporting, and the loss of a grace period.” This would make it harder to qualify for an auto loan or mortgage.
The agency concedes that credit-card issuers may also raise interest rates, reduce rewards, “increase minimum payment amounts or adjust credit limits to reduce credit risk associated with consumers who make late payments.” Because some states cap credit-card interest rates, “some consumers’ access to credit could fall.”

The editors closed their piece with this bit of naivete, though:

The forgotten man always pays.

Who says they’re forgotten? These are the ones the Progressive-Democratic Party wants to trap into welfare, so Party can trade welfare payments for votes. Imperial Rome did bread and circuses; Party does welfare dolings.

Boeing Production Problems and Unions

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Yes, the two are related. This is from a Wall Street Journal article on Boeing’s production sloppiness (my term) in its airline assembly operations. “Traveled work” is work done on the production line at a later station on the line than it should have been done, and generally by the personnel at that later step rather than by those who should have done it moving to the next station to complete it. For instance,

…the plane [whose door had blown out on an Alaska Airlines flight] spent nearly three weeks shuffling down an assembly line with faulty rivets in need of repair.
Workers had spotted the bad parts almost immediately after the plane’s fuselage arrived at the factory. But they didn’t make the fix right away, and the 737 continued on to the next workstation. When crews completed the repair 19 days later….

Boeing’s fix [emphasis added]?

Boeing told staff it was changing how it determines pay for tens of thousands of nonunion employees—from mechanics in South Carolina to its top brass. Quality measures, such as reducing traveled work, will now determine 60% of the annual bonuses for those working on its commercial aircraft.

Boeing’s union employees apparently get to continue to skate. The move appears to single out Boeing’s right-to-work state employees for punishment while not addressing the problem itself.

Government Making Crime Pay

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Now the Progressive-Democratic Party reigning in the New York State government wants to reward felons for their crimes. After those felons have paid their debt to New York society through their jail time (and apparently before they’ve served out the rest of their penalty in the form of parole), the State wants to give them $2,600 for their trouble.

The legislation, introduced by State Senator Kevin Parker [D] and Assemblyman Eddie Gibbs [D], would allow inmates to collect around $400 each month over six months once they leave prison.
As the bill currently stands, there are no limitations on how or where the money can be spent, according to Fox 5 New York.

They’re looking at setting aside $25 million for this reward fund.

Instead of paying criminals for their crime, maybe this taxpayer money (the original $40 the felons routinely get on release came from their garnished wages from the jobs they held while in jail) would be better spent going to a victim rehab/make whole fund instead. Alternatively, maybe this taxpayer money would be better spent countering, if only a little, the State’s Defund the Police movement.

Alternatively alternatively, maybe this taxpayer money—evidently excess collections since it’s aimed at such foolishness—could be returned to the State’s citizens. After all, as Progressive-Democrat Gibbs complains,

In this economy that [the original $40] amount is barely enough to get groceries or purchase clothes for a job interview[.]

That’s also the case for the honest citizens of New York, both jobless and working poor.

It’s highly useful to help released felons readjust to life on the outside and start to recover (or begin) an honest life. Paying them for their crimes doesn’t accomplish that. Thus, and additional alternative: commit the $25 million to programs—not State-run!—jail house training in the trades, half-way house rehab and job prep, and the like. Gibbs and Parker like the idea of no strings attached for the felons’ spending their $2,600 each; they should have no trouble committing, unrestricted, their aggregated $25 mil to private enterprises to run these programs. Or—the horror—paying the $2,600 per to the employer who hires a newly released felon.

It’s instructive that of all the plethora of alternatives available, these Progressive-Democrats picked the absolute worst of the lot, the one that directly rewards the felon with free cash.

Biden Doesn’t Want Israel to Win

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Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is busily telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to go into Rafah to finish the task of destroying Hamas.

It is a red line, but I am never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical. So there is no red line I am going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them. But there’s red lines that if he crosses….
[As paraphrased by The Wall Street Journal] He added that a complete cutoff of weapons shipments wasn’t an option.

He went on to cite Hamas’ own claim of 30,000 civilian deaths and said that was an unacceptable casualty count. With that, Biden continues to provide zero evidence that Israel isn’t trying to protect civilians as it goes after the terrorists; by implication he’s blaming the casualties on Israel. Biden also continues to ignore the fact that Hamas’ casualty count has been demonstrated to be entirely bogus.

Biden’s threat to provide only enough support to keep Israel in the fight bleeding and dying while preventing the nation from winning the war Hamas has inflicted and is prosecuting isn’t necessarily antisemitic, though; it’s part and parcel with his moves to prevent Ukraine from winning with his slow-walking and blocking delivery of weapons needed for actual, and relatively prompt, victory.

A No-Filibuster Senate

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The Wall Street Journal editors worry about Arizona’s Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s decision not to run for reelection, coupled with West Virginia Progressive-Democratic Party Senator Joe Manchin’s retirement, and how those decisions will affect the Senate filibuster. The editors correctly predict the end of the filibuster if the Progressive-Democrats maintain their Senate majority after the coming elections, and they suggest the ravages of the resulting one-party rule:

  • doubling the national minimum wage
  • mandating a British NIH-style national health care program—Medicare for All—and damn the cost or reduction in quality of health care
  • enacting national “right” to abortion
  • a 35% corporate tax
  • union favoritism
  • enacting nationwide mail voting

The editors then, with breathtaking innocence, suggest that the next time Republicans were to control Congress and the White House, they could abolish all of these. However, once the Progressive-Democrats get control of our Federal government is so sweeping, filibusterless way, on what basis do these editors think any opposition party could ever win a national election again?

For all of those risks, though, the editors missed the one that would impact the last bastion of our republican form of government. With no filibuster, Party could easily stack the Supreme Court and install their activist Justices, who would then issue rulings entirely consistent with Party’s disdain for our Constitution. That would be the end of the Supreme Court, and of so much more.

The stakes for our republic are that high.