Category Archives: ethics

Some Questions

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Then-Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden was asked some questions by Senator Ron Johnson (R, WI) regarding Biden son Hunter and Biden’s relationship with Hunter’s “business” dealings.

  • How could former Vice President Biden look any Ukrainian official (or any other world leader) in the face and demand action to fight corruption?
  • Did this glaring conflict of interest affect the work and efforts of other US officials who worked on anti-corruption measures?
  • Did Burisma, its owner, or representatives receive special access to, or treatment from, US agencies or officials because of Hunter Biden’s role on the board of directors?
  • Was there anything corrupt or unethical about the financial transactions between Hunter Biden and Burisma?
  • How did State Department officials responsible for promoting anti-corruption measures in Ukraine react to Hunter Biden joining Burisma’s board of directors?
  • Exactly when, and for what reasons, did the US government decide to condition a $1 billion loan guarantee for Ukraine on the termination of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin?
  • What was the reaction within the Obama administration when the replacement prosecutor general, Yuri Lutsenko, closed the case investigation of Burisma and its owner? Did Vice President Biden and other US government officials believe that justice had been served and their anti-corruption efforts were successful?
  • Why did you meet with Devon Archer at the White House on April 16, 2014? What was discussed? Did you discuss anything related to Ukraine, Hunter Biden, or Burisma?
  • Were you aware that Devon Archer joined the board of Burisma six days later?
  • Were you aware that Burisma’s owner, Mykoloa Zlochevsky, was generally viewed as a corrupt oligarch and that his London bank account containing $23 million had been seized by British officials only 15 days before Hunter Biden joined the board of a company he owned?
  • Was Hunter Biden aware that British officials had seized Zlochevsky’s bank account?
  • When did you first become aware of Zlochevsky’s and Burisma’s reputations for corruption?
  • Do you believe Zlochevsky and Burisma are corrupt?
  • Were you aware in April 2014 that Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma?
  • When did you first become aware that Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma?
  • When did you first become aware of how much Hunter Biden was being compensated by Burisma?
  • Why do you believe Burisma recruited and paid Archer and your son to be on its board?
  • What skills or knowledge do you believe Hunter Biden possesses that qualified him to be on Burisma’s board and receive $50,000 to $166,000 per month for his and his partner’s services?
  • What exactly had Shokin done that caused you to threaten to withhold $1 billion in desperately needed aid from Ukraine if President Poroshenko didn’t fire him?
  • What do you know about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China?
  • What do you know about financial benefits your brothers and sister-in-law have obtained because of their relationship to you?

Biden ran away from answering them at the time. Just the News has some updates to those questions.

  • In April 2014, you gave a speech in Kiev calling for Ukraine to expand its natural gas production, Burisma’s core business. In private emails, Hunter Biden and Archer took credit for the language in the speech. Why did you make the request and did your son or his business partner have anything to do with it? (NEW)
  • State Department officials have testified your son’s work for Burisma while you oversaw [as vice president] Ukraine policy created the appearance of a conflict of interest and they further wrote in a classified email in 2016 that the conflict had undercut US anticorruption efforts in Ukraine. How do you respond to those criticisms? (NEW)
  • A 2017 series of memos referred to a Chinese business deal your son was involved in that reserved 10% equity for the “big guy.” What did you know about it and were you that “big guy?” (NEW)
  • Emails on your son’s laptop now in the hands of the FBI refer to shared accounts or bills between you and him. Did your son ever give your any money, gift or financial benefit from his business dealings? (NEW)

Will now-President Joe Biden (D) continue to run away from them? Will today’s press continue to ignore or spike them?

Yewbetcha and yewbetcha.

NATO Member Nations’ “Commitment”

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has gotten NATO members to step up their military budgets. Or so is the hopeful assessment of those member nation governments’…claims.

NATO members outside the US are set to boost their military spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to alliance Secretary-General [and former Norway Prime Minister] Jens Stoltenberg and pledges from member countries.

However [emphasis added].

Only eight countries, including the US, already cross the 2% threshold, according to NATO’s report, a decline from the previous annual report, in which 11 countries met the target.

And

The percentages are subject to changes in both defense budgets and to economic activity, which has been buffeted by the coronavirus pandemic over the past two years.

Indeed. There’s always an excuse for walking away from an inconvenient commitment.

Stoltenberg, as cited by The Wall Street Journal, said:

…it is hard for governments to allocate more money for defense. “But when we see a new security reality, we all realize the need to invest in our security,” he said.

No, it’s not hard at all. Either the nations’ governments honor their commitments to defend each other, either the nations’ governments honor their obligation to defend their own people (which is enhanced—or would be—by that mutual defense commitment), or they do not. The only hard part is finding the moral courage actually to do what they say they will do. The rest is just allocation of monies.

On that note, this:

But Germany and other countries that fall short have recently announced new plans to increase military spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Germany is a prime example of this. During the Trump administration, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to increase Germany’s military spending to 2% of GDP or more, and thereby honor Germany’s commitment to that 2% threshold—a commitment Germany had been dishonoring since the NATO-wide commitment’s inception in 2014. Then Germany continued to dishonor its commitment under Merkel: the budget she submitted next after her commitment to Trump welched anew; her budget allocated less than 1.6% of GDP to Germany’s military.

Now Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz has made the Merkel commitment, but there’s no reason to believe he has any more intention than Merkel had of honoring the promise.

Those other 20+ countries who’ve been dishonoring their commitments all along? Sure. Italy already has walked away again; the others likely will simply be quiet about their continued decision to not spend on military needs.

There’s always an excuse.

Transparency in Schools

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Florida now has a significant measure of some.

As a part of the “Year of the Parent,” a commitment [Florida Governor Ron (R)] DeSantis has made to prioritize parental rights, DeSantis signed HB 1467, which includes several protections for parents, such as requiring school districts to allow parents to review all books in the school library, all required classroom book lists, and any instructional materials teachers use.

And

The new law requires school districts convening for the purpose of selecting instructional materials to post meeting notices and make them open to the public. They must also provide access to all materials at least 20 days prior to the school board taking official action on instructional materials, according to the new law. The Department of Education will also be required to publish a list of materials that have been removed or discontinued by school boards as a result of an objection and disseminate the list to school districts for their consideration.

Transparency—what a concept. We all still need, though, a resumption of the practice of parents occasionally sitting on a class their children are taking.

Tear It Down and Start Over

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It turns out the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control acted enthusiastically and frequently in the absence of data on the outcomes of its diktats guidelines. In particular, the CDC chose to act even though it lacked—and knew it lacked—

data on students’ learning loss when the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its COVID-19 school reopening guidance[.]

Even that early icon of medical sensibility, Anthony Fauci (of d National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases directorship and Wuhan Lab gain of function infamy) was warning the CDC of the uselessness of such things as six feet of separation requirements.

The CDC also was freely influenced by teachers union demands.

…NEA and the American Federations of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union, influenced last-minute changes to the school guidance and received a copy before its public release.
The emails [at the link above] followed a New York Post report showing close coordination between the teachers unions and the CDC. APT [Americans for Public Trust] also obtained those emails through the Freedom of Information Act.
Before releasing the reopening guidance, the Biden administration considered teachers unions’ labor disputes

We need a function like that which the CDC used to serve, was designed to serve. The CDC no longer is that agency; it has become a science deficient, political, and union-influenced agency rather than a medical science advising agency, and it needs to be disbanded and dissolved, its personnel returned to the private sector.

A new facility needs to be set up in its place, with all new personnel, all drawn from the private sector—including the management team—all with practical, life-death, decision-making experience. No politicians, no dilettantes, no corporate executives need apply.

This, Too, Is a Start

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To paraphrase an old trope, transgenders are people, too. Whether gender dysphoria is truly the case in particular individuals, or it’s a sham claim by some boys and young men in order to gain access to girls’ and women’s sports competition (or just their locker rooms), or it’s the manufacture of woke “schooling,” transgenders, those victimized by that pseudo-schooling, even the cheaters, need a place to compete.

Just not a place where males transgendered into women compete against women. Nor should women transgendered into men be competing against men, but given the nature of transgendering, that’s not a problem.

Men and women, boys and girls, start out with the facts of biology: an XX set of chromosomes or an XY set. That beginning, at the egg-sperm uniting stage and throughout subsequent development, confers on the male stronger, heavier bones, and stronger and heavier muscles. The different origin and development paths also impart permanently different hormone sets and bodily outcomes from those differing hormones. And that’s just the start. No amount of hormone therapy, no amount of testosterone withholding—or adding, in the case of girls transgendering into boys—changes those inherent physical advantages that born-boys have over born-girls. Not even the differing hip and shoulder structures change post-transgendering. The physical advantage is permanent.

Lia Thomas, via the recently concluded season of NCAA swimming, provides a canonical example. Her performance advantage was heavily illustrated both by her margins of victory in the women’s competitions and by the level of his performance when competing as a man the prior years.

And so we have the Utah legislature enacting, over Governor Spencer Cox’ (R) veto, a bill banning transgender competition in Utah’s schools. Cox had said he’d tried to do what I feel is the right thing regardless of the consequences. His veto letter centered on his concern that ensuing lawsuits

will likely bankrupt the Utah High School Athletic Association and result in millions of dollars in legal fees for local school districts with no state protection….

His four-page veto letter listed other concerns centered mostly on the process by which the bill was amended (several times) and then enacted.

Cox’ fiscal concern is valid, if somewhat overblown—a firmly zealous early defense would forestall further lawsuits and mitigate their total costs.

Still, the legislature’s move is—can be—only a start. Transgenders do need a place, a means, by which they can participate in sports. Now it’s time to set up a Title IX athletics program for transgender athletes so they can compete against their peers, and women can go back to competing against their peers.