Category Archives: ethics

“Who Do You Work For?”

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The stereotypical Chicago question applies to the governorship of Kentucky. The Wall Street Journal‘s editors put the question to the State’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Andy Beshear.

Will he listen to parents or unions on federal tax credit scholarships?

The State’s legislature passed legislation that would opt the State into the Federal government’s school choice program, which would be the only school choice program the State has. That was over a week ago, but Beshear still has it on his desk, unsigned.

Beshear’s…hesitation…answers the question. Kentucky’s parents don’t pay his salary. Neither do the unions directly, just through their political donations and their votes.

On top of that, the fact that the legislature could easily override his veto serves only to give him cover for his inaction: “The legislature made me do it (apologies for the opening ad).”

“Nuisance” Laws

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The Supreme Court will hear this fall a case that will determine whether States can sue fossil fuel companies for damages related to global climate change.

The state and local government officials argued that fossil fuel companies are liable under nuisance laws.

As Just the News put it, though,

Typically, state nuisance laws are used in disputes with neighbors where an individual may be conducting activities that lower the value of another individual’s property. Legal experts said state nuisance laws are inappropriate to address damages from climate change.

Michael Williams, West Virginia’s Solicitor General, had this, also:

Questions that touch on global energy markets and interstate commerce and foreign policy, those are decisions that really belong in the hands of Congress or at the very least at the federal level[.]

Phil Goldberg, Manufacturers’ Accountability Project Special Counsel, on the broad variety of separate lawsuits currently in the lower courts:

This is throwing a bunch of legal spaghetti up on the wall and seeing what sticks. All these different kinds of the combinations and permutations undermine the idea that there is any kind of legal theory or finding behind these allegations that they may have.

Indeed. The climate funding industry supporters don’t have any serious case in progress or in the offing.

That brings me to related questions: what about all the plaintiffs and law firms behind these “climate” suits? Shouldn’t they be sued under those same nuisance laws for being themselves nuisances with these foolish lawsuits?

Aren’t they also vulnerable under a variety of SLAPP—Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation—lawsuits? After all, plaintiffs don’t actually expect to win these cases; they’re just suing to intimidate their targets with high and growing costs of defending themselves or to wear them down and force the defendants to change or outright abandon their positions. Plaintiffs here, with the complicity of lawyers, simply repeatedly sue and sue and sue until their goals are achieved.

That’s One Spin

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The news writers over at The Wall Street Journal now are insisting that President Donald Trump (R) has reversed himself on the matter of regime change and Western intervention.

In front of a packed chamber of Arab leaders last May, President Trump declared that the era of American-led regime change was over.
“In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built,” he said in Riyadh, deriding the “Western interventionalists giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs.”
Nine months later, he launched the largest US military operation the region had seen in two decades and urged Iranians to “take over” their government, backed by US force.
It marked a jarring reversal….

Trump went on to say, in a variety of venues, that the Iranian people needed to be the ones to act, not outside forces. He added further, that the opportunity arises out of the US/Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities; its missile and drone production and launch facilities; and the nation’s chief terrorists, Khamenei and much of his syndicate. The opportunity for the Iranian people to take the fate of their government in their own hands arises as a side effect of these attacks, not as a regime change goal.

This further illustrates the…misapprehension:

[A] new conviction among the president and his top advisers after January’s operation in Venezuela that regime change didn’t have to mean another Iraq….

There’s been no regime change in Venezuela. The head man and his wife have been removed from the Venezuelan government, but the government he headed remains intact.

The news writers have their spin, and there are facts on the ground.

An Alternative Move

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Vice President JD Vance (R), in his new capacity as leader of President Donald Trump’s (R) newly formed anti-fraud facility, has paused transfer of some $260 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota until that State begins to do a better job of accounting for how it spends those American taxpayer dollars. Minnesota’s Progressive-Democrat governor, Tim Walz, promptly claimed that Vance’s move was nothing more than a

campaign of retribution. Trump is weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota. These cuts will be devastating for veterans, families with young kids, folks with disabilities, and working people across our state.

There is a valid concern buried under Walz’ manufactured hysteria—the loss of financial support for the groups of Americans he named. As Vance noted,

Vance…recalled his own experience growing up depending on government programs and said the money should be there for people and children who need it. “It’s disgraceful that fraudsters out there are taking advantage of programs like Medicaid[.]”

There is an alternative solution to a blanket cutoff, however temporary. Who the individuals are in those groups about whom Walz so piously pretends to care is known to the Federal government. Those $260 million should be sent directly to those individuals, entirely bypassing the State and the third parties Walz’ administration uses to distribute and funnel the money.

The shift would go a long way toward reducing the corruption in the State’s Medicaid facility by bypassing it entirely. Remaining fraud would be limited to the Federal government’s distribution facility, and that, as a one-time affair, would be minimal. The Trump I administration’s distribution of a one-time followed by a smaller one-time distribution of Wuhan Virus shutdown funds to American taxpayers shows the way.

At Whose Cost?

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The Federal courts, in the person of Judge Robert Conrad in his capacity as Director of the Administrative Office of the US Courts, wants that office to take control of and responsibility for the physical Federal courthouses around the nation.

This request is a long-standing Judicial Conference position, originally adopted in 1989, and reaffirmed again in 2006. This position is being sought now because the condition of many buildings housing the Judiciary has reached a crisis point after decades of inadequate management and oversight.
This has led to over $8 billion worth of delinquent infrastructure repairs that have created risks to safety, security, and court operations. The recent unilateral actions and reorganization of GSA have only exacerbated these conditions[.]

Whether that last is accurate is a separate question. It’s nevertheless a valid beef, but my questions here are these: who will produce those $8 billion, the AOUSC through some sort of fee structure (levied on whom), some sort of GSA-/Congressional-mandated fee structure (levied on whom)? A line item in one of Congress’ appropriation bills? Something else?

Next, is this a one-time fund, or is it ongoing? At what sustainment level?

Then, who will administer the fund, whether it’s one-time or ongoing? Will this be an AOUSC function, or will it be GSA, Congressional, …?

Finally, who will let, agree, and administer the upgrade/maintenance contracts? Again, would this fall to the AOUSC, to GSA, to someone else?