A Plebe's Site

Quam bene vivas referre, non quam diu.

Misaimed Suit

Posted on 18 December 2024 by eehines

Recall, in the late runup to the Presidential election last month, the Des Moines Register published a poll by the once-respected pollster Ann Selzer that had Progressive-Democrat Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by three percentage points, which represented a significant swing from a month prior poll that had Trump leading by a significant margin. Selzer’s early November poll was a definite outlier; all of the other polls of the time had Trump leading by a little.

Now President-elect Donald Trump (R) is thinking about suing the Register and Selzer for election interference in publishing that poll. This time, I side with the news outlet. The Register only published the poll. If there was election interference being attempted, it would have been by Selzer through her poll. Selzer is the only one who should be the target of any sort of election interference beef here.

Legalized Extortion

Posted on 18 December 2024 by eehines

Elon Musk says he’s been ordered/threatened/whathaveyou to “settle” an SEC beef, or else. The SEC’s capo, Gary Gensler, has told Musk he must agree within 48 hours to either accept a monetary payment or face charges on numerous counts.

This is the Federal government, which has no authority to do so, requiring a settlement be agreed. This is more than just an effort to stampede a defendant so an arm of government can avoid the embarrassment of taking a weak case to court and getting a public failure and a potful of opprobrium when it loses.

This is that arm of government demanding the defendant pay the vig or suffer damage to, if not destruction of, his business. Crime syndicate capi do that. It’s behavior that doesn’t belong in the government of a free people.

Gensler should face far sterner sanction than just loss of his job.

TANSTAAFL

2 + 2 must always = 4
–Polish proverb

Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.
–John Adams

Nothing in the universe has a shorter half-life than a politician’s memory for inconvenient facts.
–Admiral Hamish Alexander, RMN

Dawn is nature’s way of telling you to go to bed.
And to just stay there until the evil yellow disk is gone again.
–Anonymous

In a polity, each citizen is to possess his own arms, which are not supplied or owned by the state.
–Aristotle

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
–Chief Justice John Roberts.

A yawn is a silent scream for coffee.
–Shane Mclean

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.
–Abraham Lincoln

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