Category Archives: ethics

Chip Manufacturing

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The Biden administration is bent on bringing computer chip manufacturing back into the United States. On its face, that would seem beneficial. However, the administration team he’s formed to oversee the matter and its $39 billion of taxpayer dollars allocated to the program is populated with

investment bankers, private-equity investors, and management consultants.

And apparently no chip engineers or anyone familiar with supplying chip factories.

Uh, huh.

The Manhattan Project and the crash program to develop treatments for the Wuhan Virus were populated, strongly preferentially, with experts in the field, and they just as strongly deemphasized the moneybags experts.

That’s not the case with Biden’s nightmare dream team of money allocators. This isn’t a true crash program, certainly, but it’s still an effort to rapidly guts something up. It needs experts in the field to do the gutsing, it does not need politically connected money handlers.

Collusion

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Or worse. The Wall Street Journal‘s editors are on the right track to criticize the sham nature of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to appoint David Weiss as Special Counsel (an illegal appointment, as illustrated nearby) in the Hunter Biden (and possibly et al.) investigation.

Those editors, though, are surprisingly naïve in one regard. On the matter of DoJ’s (Garland’s and Weiss’) move to formally withdraw the plea deal that Federal District Judge Maryellen Noreika had rejected the day it was presented to her, the editors suggested,

He may now end up facing some felony tax charges, as two investigating IRS whistleblowers told Congress they had recommended, or perhaps other charges.

The Editors can’t possibly be this naive. There are only two likely outcomes to this. One is that Weiss drops the charges altogether and walks away. The other is that Weiss proceeds with the present case, and charges Hunter Biden with precisely the charges to which Hunter had agreed to plead guilty.

As to Weiss’ sweetheart “Special” Counsel role, that in no way blocks either of the above moves; his new title is just a mechanism to drag out his new sham investigation for another five years, following which he’ll write a report that shakes his finger very firmly at Biden.

The fix has been made manifest, and Garland has shown that he’s far more deeply embedded than Eric Holder was in his wingman role; Garland is Joe Biden’s made man.

The Problems with David Weiss’ Appointment

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Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed Delaware Federal Prosecutor David Weiss as Special Counsel overseeing the Huner Biden collection of investigations. You all know this already. There are problems with Garland’s appointment and with Weiss’ being in that position.

Here is what 28 CFR § 600.3 – Qualifications of the Special Counsel says about who’s allowed to be appointed to the position and who’s allowed to occupy the position.

  • 600.3 Qualifications of the Special Counsel.
    (a) An individual named as Special Counsel shall be a lawyer with a reputation for integrity and impartial decisionmaking, and with appropriate experience to ensure both that the investigation will be conducted ably, expeditiously and thoroughly, and that investigative and prosecutorial decisions will be supported by an informed understanding of the criminal law and Department of Justice policies. The Special Counsel shall be selected from outside the United States Government. Special Counsels shall agree that their responsibilities as Special Counsel shall take first precedence in their professional lives, and that it may be necessary to devote their full time to the investigation, depending on its complexity and the stage of the investigation.
    (b) The Attorney General shall consult with the Assistant Attorney General for Administration to ensure an appropriate method of appointment, and to ensure that a Special Counsel undergoes an appropriate background investigation and a detailed review of ethics and conflicts of interest issues. A Special Counsel shall be appointed as a “confidential employee” as defined in 5 U.S.C. 7511(b)(2)(C).

The problems begin with Special Counsel shall be a lawyer with a reputation for integrity and impartial decisionmaking. Both of these criteria are open questions as they apply to Weiss. Weiss, recall, is the Delaware Federal Prosecutor who agreed to a plea deal regarding Hunter Biden’s tax and gun possession misbehaviors that was so dishonest—he even tried to slide a permanent immunity clause into a rehab program requirement and didn’t present that clause to the presiding judge until the day he, in collusion with Biden’s lawyers, hoped she would bless the deal—that the presiding judge rejected the deal the day it was laid in front of her. The lack of impartiality of Weiss’ decision making is exemplified by that same dishonest plea deal: his judgment was such that he thought he could railroad, or con, the judge with his stampede effort.

Next is the part about the investigation will be conducted ably, expeditiously and thoroughly. Weiss took five years to investigate what he considered to be misdemeanors and a minor drug habit—the charges and rehab need to which he agreed in the above plea deal. He may have been uncommonly thorough (emphasis on may) in those misdemeanor investigations, but they most assuredly were neither ably done nor expeditiously so.

Then there’s the bit about The Special Counsel shall be selected from outside the United States Government. This, by itself, should have been a deal breaker, and it demonstrates AG Merrick Garland’s own utter dishonesty and shameless participation in what can only be a coverup of Hunter Biden’s, President Joe Biden’s (D), and the Biden Family Syndicate’s criminal behaviors. Weiss, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times above, is deep inside the United States Government; he’s deep inside the United States Department of Justice; he was, until his current appointment, the United States Attorney for the District of Delaware.

That former Attorney General Bill Barr appointed United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham as Special Counsel regarding the Russia Collusion Hoax sets no precedent that clears Garland or Weiss of this deal breaker. That’s merely a prior grievous error by an Attorney General.

Biden’s Attack on American Free Markets

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The Biden administration’s OMB is moving to eliminate consideration of opportunity costs from the administration’s estimates of the costs of proposed regulations, a move that would make those regulations seem cheaper than they are.

Opportunity costs are at the core of free market economics, and The Wall Street Journal‘s editors offer a succinct definition [emphasis added].

Consider a business that spends $1 million obeying a regulation by making an upgrade, installing new equipment, hiring lawyers, and whatever else compliance entails.
[O]pportunity cost is what the $1 million would have been used for absent the regulation. It might have been spent on research and development, hiring, increasing output, or paying bonuses to employees, who in turn would spend it on something else.
An accountant would say the cost of this regulation is $1 million, and this is basically how President Biden’s OMB wants regulators and the public to think as well. A good economist knows better and would account not only for the dollars spent but also the forgone rate of return on activities never taken up due to regulatory compliance.

Thus, opportunity cost estimating is a critical way in which businessmen—not just economists—estimate the value of a variety of potential moves in an effort to identify the one (or two in concert with each other) that make the most business sense/provide highest and most likely return(s) on the actual dollars that would actually be committed.

Biden’s move is not just an attempt to…mislead…us ordinary Americans regarding the costs of the Biden regulatory state, it’s an outright attack on our free market economy and an attempt to replace it with his regulatory state, economic decisions from the center, economy.

The Fix is In

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Recall that Delaware Federal Prosecutor David Weiss is the prosecutor who agreed to a wrist-slap plea deal regarding Hunter Biden’s tax failures and his illegal possession of a firearm. That deal was so soft, and so shady—Weiss even tried to slide an indemnity against any further prosecution on any matter into the rehab program Weiss had agreed—that the judge presiding on the case tossed it the day it was formally presented to her.

Now, Attorney General Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden’s (D) wingman in DoJ has appointed a special counsel to oversee the continuing/renewed investigations into Hunter Biden’s shady foreign dealings (many of which border on, if not actually are, FARA violations), money laundering, and influence peddling, all of which have implications regarding Joe Biden’s involvement.

That special counsel is…David Weiss. That David Weiss.

This is move does two things: it sets the stage for whitewashing the Biden family, and it actively interferes with the House investigations into Hunter Biden’s dealings and those dealings’ implications regarding Joe Biden. Now the principles and other witnesses have cover to refuse to testify before the House’s investigating committees: “it interferes with an ongoing investigation.”

Sure.

And one more thing. The appointment of Weiss as special counsel is a sham. Special counsels, by statute, must come from outside government, not just outside DoJ. Weiss is not and he will not be outside of anything as a result of this move of Garland/Biden.

One more one more thing: all a special council can do, all the teeth that one has, is write up a report on his findings. He cannot require, or even recommend, prosecution or exoneration. Nor is there a deadline even for that senior thesis to be delivered.