The FDIC, in the wake of its own failure regarding the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapses (primarily caused by those banks’ managers’ failures, but the FDIC had its role, too, along with the Federal Reserve’s regulators), now wants to excuse failure by making those who failed whole again—and do it at the expense of the rest of us.
Fay Vincent, erstwhile Major League Baseball Commissioner, had an op-ed in last Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal centered on the moral and legal aspects of why we swear to be truthful on those occasions when we are called on explicitly to tell the truth.
The oath warns that the testimony is a serious matter and that failing to be truthful has consequences.
The invocation of God reflects the traditional view that lying has consequences beyond legal bounds. The old-fashioned belief is that lying is wrong morally.
So far, so good. He added,
My generation believed and accepted a person’s word was a bond.
Recall that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R, KY) subpoenaed the FBI for an FD-1023 form that is supposed to contain information concerning a potential criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden (D) and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions. The subpoena also required the FBI to advise the committee concerning what it did to investigate these allegations.
Both Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley (R, IA), who also wants the document and information so he can run his own investigation (however limited by being in the minority party in the Senate) into the doings of Joe Biden and his family, were confident of the document’s existence, but since their position was based on a so far unidentified whistleblower’s claim, there were doubts about the form’s actual existence.
And it’s a shameful truth for what passes for journalism in our nation.
CNN President Chris Licht defended his news outlet’s hosting a Donald Trump town hall and the job Kaitlan Collins did moderating it.
Kaitlan pressed him again and again and made news[.]
Made a lot of news, that is our job.
No, a news outlet’s job is to report the news, not to make it. That’s how far the American journalism guild has sunk. A symptom of how deeply into the cesspool it’s gone is that Licht is completely oblivious to the nature of the truth he revealed.
In response to a collection of education-related laws recently enacted in Florida, Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar said in his news release,
This new law grossly oversteps in trying to silence teachers, staff, professors, and most other public employees. We will not go quietly….
Here’s some of what those silencing laws do:
Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s Janet Yellen-run Treasury department has—once again—extended a waiver to a rule barring import of Russian oil and gas that was instituted ‘way back in March 2022. Even at the time of the rule’s institution, Treasury created a waiver to allow financial institutions to continue processing dollar-currencied payments for Russian energy in other countries.
The waiver was supposed to expire by that June, but Yellen extended it to early December. She said, through a Treasury spokeswoman,
This license [extension] will provide for an orderly transition to help our broad coalition of partners reduce their dependence on Russian energy as we work to restrict the Kremlin’s revenue sources[.]
This one waiting to be signed by Michigan’s Progressive-Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
A judge would have 24 hours to decide on a temporary extreme risk protection order after a request is filed. If granted, the judge would then have 14 days to set a hearing during which the flagged person would have to prove they do not pose a significant risk. A standard order would last one year.
Lying to a court when petitioning for a protection order would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to 93 days in jail and a $500 fine.
That’s soon-to-be-ex-Mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot’s (D) plaint to Texas Governor Gregg Abbott (R) over his bussing illegal aliens to Chicago.
But I beseech you anyway: treat these individuals with the respect and dignity that they deserve. To tell them to go to Chicago or to inhumanely bus them here is an inviable and misleading choice.
She also cried, as paraphrased by Fox News, that
the city has been responsible for the care of more than 8,000 people who had no resources of their own since the first buses arrived from Texas in August—adding that the number continues to grow.
High-profile media figures gathered for their 2024 Campaign Journalism Conference at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics a week or so ago. One theme of the conference was the journalists’ concern about the perception of condescension, of looking down your nose at us Americans that we Americans have of the journalism guild and its members.
CNN journalist Jeff Zeleny was one expressing that concern.
But it’s a small step, and much more needs to be done. A bill has moved through the Texas legislature—it’s now on Governor Greg Abbott’s (R) desk—that would create a $200 annual registration fee for battery vehicles.
State Senator Robert Nichols (R), who sponsored the bill in the Senate:
As more of these vehicles drive on Texas roads, there are concerns about how they contribute to the funding of the roads which they use. Currently, Texas uses the gasoline/diesel fuel tax to fund transportation projects; however, with the growing use of EVs, the revenue from the fuel tax is decreasing, which diminishes our ability to fund road improvements for all drivers.