Category Archives: ethics

Ransom

Posted on by
Reply

That’s what President Joe Biden (D) paid for five Americans kidnapped by Iran—$6 billion worth of ransom. Here’s Biden’s disingenuous (at best) claim:

Today [18 Sep 2023], five innocent Americans who were imprisoned in Iran are finally coming home…after enduring years of agony, uncertainty, and suffering[.]

Translation: Today, the United States government aided and abetted a criminal entity in the pursuance of its crimes by rewarding Iran for its crime of kidnapping.

Paying this ransom has just put a price tag on all Americans traveling overseas, and especially in the Middle East. Worse, that price has gone sky high: Biden has set the reserve price at $1.2 billion per American.

Biden’s dishonest rationalization, through a carefully anonymous senior administration official, for paying the Iranian ransom:

The alternative is these Americans never come home.

Never mind that lots of prior administrations—not just the immediately prior Trump administration—had brought kidnapped Americans home from a variety of criminal enterprises, not only Iran, without paying any ransom.

That’s not all. In addition to upping the incentive for kidnapping and raising the ransom requirement, Biden has personally funded further Iranian terrorist and terrorist-supporting activities for Iran, to the tune of $6 billion that Iran didn’t have last Sunday.

Talking about the Weather

Posted on by
Reply

That’s what Hunter Biden, Devon Archer—both Burisma board of directors members at the time—then-Vice President Joe Biden, and Marc Holtzman discussed in the Vice President’s Naval Observatory residence. Or maybe not.

Holtzman wanted to advocate for former Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov—today imprisoned in his country on treason charges—to become the next United Nations Secretary General.

The quid pro quo:

Hunter Biden and Archer hoped Holtzman—then the top official at Kazakhstan’s largest bank—could help deliver an energy deal for their Burisma client in Ukraine with Kazakhstan. Joe Biden was in a position to influence both.

The quid pro for the quid pro quo:

The other reasons for Massimov were Burisma Eurasia, because he was the Prime Minister, and Burisma was trying to expand its businesses, so I [Archer] leveraged the relationship to introduce him to the company….

This is the level of corruption that the President Joe Biden (D) syndicate is engaged in. That corruption and the legacy press’ collusion in it continue today. Biden’s White House Counsel, through his spokesman,

sent a memo Tuesday, titled, “It’s Time For The Media To Do More To Scrutinize House Republicans’ Demonstrably False Claims That They’re Basing Impeachment Stunt On”….

This is Biden’s diktat to the legacy press regarding the “news coverage” they’re required to do.

House Republican leaders should be held accountable…

And

As you begin to cover the House GOP’s impeachment push more intensely….

The Biden instruction to the legacy media can be read here.

Greedy UAW

Posted on by
Reply

The United Automobile Workers Union, per its president Shawn Fain, is threatening to strike the three automakers GM, Ford, and Stellantis (nee Chrysler) simultaneously after midnight Thursday (as I write Thursday midday). The union is demanding

  • 36% pay raises over the next four years
  • raises to correspond to the cost of living
  • an end to tiered-wages for factory jobs
  • a 32-hour work week with 40 hours of pay
  • pension increases

Some of those would seem legitimate, or at least open to discussion, and typical union wants that most employers could find some sort of agreement on. The pay raise demand is egregious, and the demand to be paid for hours not worked is simply greedy, glorified featherbedding.

Furthermore, the strike is a direct attack on the companies’ ability to function at all: by the design and purpose of the strike, it closes the businesses and prevents it from earning any revenue. From that, it closely approaches extortion. In the present case, the UAW plans to maximize the damage they intend to inflict with what Fain is calling a “Stand Up Strike:”

“…keep the companies guessing as to where and when the next local walkout would be,” Fain said.

The car companies need to stand tall and refuse to negotiate as long as the union holds this metaphorical gun to their heads.

Aside from that, in a world where unions weren’t given special considerations—they’re even exempt from antitrust law, even though they have a monopoly on workforces in union shops and in unionized industries like the auto manufacturing of Michigan—such overt attacks would invalidate any contract to which management is coerced into agreeing.

Update: The UAW has, indeed, struck all three automakers, one major plant each. The union has shut down GM’s Wentzville, MO, plant, a 4.25 million sq-ft facility that was producing mid-size trucks and full-size vans under the GMC and Chevrolet brands; Stellantis’ Toledo, OH, 3.64 million sq-ft facility that was producing Jeep Wranglers and Jeep Gladiators; and Ford’s Wayne, MI, 5 million sq-ft facility that was producing Rangers and Broncos.

First He Disrespects our 9/11 Fallen

Posted on by
Reply

He didn’t deign appear at the 9/11 site on 11 September of this year—he lay over in Alaska on his way back from Vietnam instead of pressing on to New York. Then he lies about being at the site the day after the attack.

Ground Zero in New York—I remember standing there the next day and looking at the building. I felt like I was looking through the gates of hell. It looked so devastating. Because of the way you—from where you could stand.

Just the News pointed out Biden’s lie—he was in DC for a Senate session—and Biden himself presaged his lie in his 2007 book Promises to Keep in which he wrote that he:

arrived in Washington on Sept. 11 after a plane hit the Pentagon and that he saw the smoke from that crash….

The New York Post exposed more of Biden’s lie:

the 80-year-old president also claimed he saw the fireball caused by the plane that struck the Pentagon in northern Virginia from Washington’s Union Station, when his own book says he merely saw “a brown haze of smoke.”

As bad as Biden’s lying is, he insults our intelligence with the blatancy of his lies: he really thinks we’re that grindingly stupid enough that we believe him.

Just Like a Progressive-Democrat

Posted on by
Reply

Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says—and he’s actually serious—that, as President, he would deport the US-born children of illegal migrants.

I favor ending birthright citizenship for those whose parents entered the country *illegally* because we shouldn’t reward those who violate the law with the intent of exploiting the citizenship rules. The Framers of the 14th Amendment never intended this & it’s arguably not even what it says (don’t forget the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause which is often ignored). That’s common sense.

For good or ill, the 14th Amendment of our Constitution is quite clear on this. Here’s the first sentence of the first Article of that Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

There’s no caveat, there’s no exception, for when a baby born in the United States can be ruled not a citizen of the United States—not even for when that baby is born to illegal aliens. Whether that’s a good or a bad blanket deeming of citizenship is for We the People, and only us, to decide, through our decision to amend our Constitution, or our decision not to amend it on this matter.

Arguably…. What Ramaswamy has chosen to “forget” is that the Supreme Court has ruled that that is precisely what it says. The Court also has ruled that subject to the jurisdiction thereof means being on American soil. (That’s one of the reasons al Qaeda terrorists were (and some still are) held in Guantanamo and not in a stateside prison.)

Aside from that, what’s common sense is adhering to our Constitution and statutes, not disregarding inconvenient parts.

Just like Progressive-Democratic Party politicians, though, Ramaswamy would blithely ignore any part of our Constitution that he finds inconvenient to him, instead of doing the actual work of getting an Amendment ratified—or even proposing one.

Vivek Ramaswamy: too much like a Progressive-Democrat to be an actual Republican.