Category Archives: ethics

Government Press

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That’s another item buried in President Joe Biden’s (D) and his Progressive-Democratic Party syndicate’s reconciliation bill.

The Local Journalism Sustainability Act (LJSA), first introduced in July, would provide a local media advertising credit of up to $5,000 in the first year and up to $2,500 in the next four years, covering 80% of advertising costs in the first year and 50% in the following four years.
Other elements of the bill would provide a federal tax credit to local media outlets that hire local news reporters, covering half of compensation up to $50,000 in the first year, and 30% of compensation up to $50,000 in the following four years. To be eligible, reporters would need to meet a minimum of 100 hours of work per quarter.

Those 100 hours required to get a “reporter” subsidy (here in the form of tax credits) aren’t even for half-time work: they’re less than 20% of full time. Get a Government subsidy for “hiring” a dilettante or a hobbyist. Nice gig for the dilettante or hobbyist.

And what’s with the advertising subsidy (tax credit)? Advertisers pay the outlet for advertising time and space; outlets don’t pay the advertisers for gracing their pages.

Senator Maria Cantwell (D, WA), the item’s sponsor:

The tax incentives in this bill will help local newspapers and digital-only news journalists and broadcast newsrooms remain financially viable to retain and hire local base journalists to cover local news stories.

Naturally, the news outlets and associated unions, including National Public Radio, the AFL-CIO, NewsGuild-CWA, and the Writers Guild of America, East are enthusiastic about the free—an unearned—money.

It’s nonsense. If the local outlets are providing a product that’s useful to the local citizens, their readers, then the local market, those local citizens, will freely support that product with their time, eyeballs, and subscription/purchase money.

Government largesse is entirely unneeded, except as a tool for Government to use to…influence…what gets published, and just as importantly, what does not get published.

The subsidies, and their proclaimed need, are nonsense. But they’re part of what the Progressive-Democrats wish to use in their drive to expand government and government intrusiveness.

Some Results of Illegal Immigration

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Here are some of those, just crossing our unprotected southern border.

  • 17,300 migrants illegally crossing our southern border, with prior convictions of other crimes, arrested. Up from 9,447 in fiscal 2020.
    • assault
    • battery
    • domestic violence
    • burglary
    • robbery
    • larceny
    • theft
    • fraud
    • DUI
    • homicide
    • manslaughter
    • illegal drug possession and trafficking
    • illegal reentry
    • illegal weapons possession and transport
    • sex offenses
  • additional 8,979 migrants arrested with outstanding arrest warrants against them from other law enforcement agencies
  • 27% of arrestees were repeat offenders previously caught in the same fiscal year

Sheriff Joe Martinez, of Val Verde County, Texas:

What’s scary…we don’t know where they [the got-aways] are going. How many were from terrorist groups from special interest countries?
That’s the unknown.

Indeed. But the Biden-Harris administration cares not a fig about any of this.

Nor is it just this flood of illegal aliens who also are seriously violent criminals.

Outgoing DEA El Paso Division Chief Kyle Williamson:

It’s the worst it’s ever been. There’s no good news here. And the amount of methamphetamine and fentanyl coming in right now is unprecedented.

From the DEA’s March National Drug Threat Assessment:

The violence, intimidation, theft, and financial crimes carried out by [Mexican] TCOs [Transnational Cartel Organizations], criminal groups, and violent gangs pose a significant threat to our nation. The criminal activities of these organizations operating in the United States extend well beyond drug trafficking and have a profoundly negative impact on the safety and security of US citizens. Their involvement in alien smuggling, firearms trafficking, and public corruption, coupled with the high levels of violence that result from these criminal endeavors, poses serious homeland security threats and public safety concerns.

The Biden-Harris administration cares not a fig about any of this, either.

Aside: Just the News refers to these as “migrants.” They are not. They are illegal aliens. Full stop. It’s sad that JtN has allowed itself to get so infected with political correctness.

Punish Success

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Punish, especially, those who are successful.

[T]he $1.75 trillion [reconciliation] package restores limits on so-called “mega IRAs,” preventing more money from being added to a Roth or traditional individual retirement account if its value exceeded $10 million. The restriction…would apply to individuals who make over $400,000 and married joint filers with more than $450,000 in annual income.

There’s that marriage penalty back, too.

And (and contradictorily to the income limit posited above)

[W]ealthy Americans with account balances above $10 million would have to draw down their accounts by a certain threshold each year, thereby triggering taxes on the money.
…. The general rule is that anyone with more than $10 million in an account must withdraw at least 50%. Those with more than $20 million would be required to withdraw 100% of anything over that $20 million threshold in their Roth accounts.

Regardless of their income. And to hell with their heirs. Or their intended charities.

Here’s another aspect of their game, from Steven Rosenthal of the Tax Policy Center:

A big first step to strip retirement tax benefits from those who don’t need the help[.]

Because Leftists know the needs of Americans better than those who’ve earned the wealth with which to satisfy their own needs.

Really, though, it’s not even that much. It’s much pettier.

Jealousy… is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

 

Managing Sensibilities

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But whose? Managing French sensibilities is never easy, The Wall Street Journal‘s editors open their editorial.

But what about Australian sensibilities? What about Brit sensibilities? What, above all, about the sensibilities of us average Americans?

I was under the impression that certain things had happened that hadn’t happened…I was under the impression that France had been informed long before that the deal was not going through. I, honest to God, did not know you had not been.

President Joe Biden (D) said that with an absolutely straight face to French President Emmanuel Macron.

Either Biden is lying through his teeth, or he has no control over what’s going on in his own Biden-Harris administration.

Either one alone demonstrates conclusively his unfitness for office. Both together….

How can Australians rely on this administration to say “G’day” and mean it, much less to maintain firm support for AUKUS? How can the Brits trust anything coming out of Biden’s mouth?

How can any American trust this administration regarding anything at all?

What Does This Say

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…about Federal bureaucrats and their…managers? And no, I’m

not talking about a Deep State or an Administrative State.

The Biden administration on Wednesday issued a sweeping new order mandating that nearly all federal agencies patch hundreds of cybersecurity vulnerabilities that are considered major risks for damaging intrusions into government computer systems.

And

The new requirement is one of the most wide-reaching cybersecurity mandates ever imposed on the federal government. It covers about 200 known security flaws identified by cybersecurity professionals between 2017 and 2020 and an additional 90 discovered in 2021 alone that have generally been observed being used by malicious hackers. Those flaws were listed in a new federal catalog as carrying “significant risk to the federal enterprise.”

What does this say about the proactivity, the willingness to act on their own recognizance, of the bureaucrats running these agencies and of the bureaucrats responsible for IT in these agencies?

It gets worse.

A significant majority of the flaws being published on the DHS catalog are ones that weren’t covered under previous orders, a senior official said.

Where’s the initiative? The lack is as appalling as it is unacceptable. Waiting—needing—to be told what to do? Really?

These are people who Know Better and passive-aggressively obstruct actions and orders with which they personally disagree. They’re in the way and need to be terminated.

These are other people who are unable to make the office cultural change necessary. They’re also in the way and need to be terminated, albeit with more favorable rationales than that first category.

These are yet other people who’ve simply had their weak performance tolerated out of misguided efforts at being nice. They’re also in the way and need to be retrained—and terminated if the training doesn’t lead to improved performance.

But most of all, those office managers and IT honchos shouldn’t have had to be told to do this critical part of their jobs. They need to be replaced, and their replacements better vetted.

If cybersecurity officials at a certain agency fail to comply with a directive, DHS [for instance] can notify the agency’s senior leaders, who are then responsible for resolving the noncompliance.

This is entirely too slow. Those failing to perform need to be corrected promptly, and if necessary, terminated promptly.

Cybersecurity isn’t just a matter of national security. It’s a matter of national survival.