Category Archives: ethics

Minimum Wage and “Must Pass” Bills

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Congressional Progressive-Democrats are looking for ways to pass a national minimum wage law through Congress.

Progressive House Democrats are rapidly searching for ways to revive the $15 minimum wage increase after a stinging loss in the passage of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus law.

Congressman Mark Pocan (D, WI):

We will get at least 50 votes in the Senate, and we will find a way to finally do what Congress has been negligent to ask for too long; whether it’s adding it to a must-pass bill or pushing it around those arcane Senate rules or some other measure, America will get the raise that is long overdue that we are committed to[.]

Along strictly Party lines and/or by being buried in a bill that Congress and the President will decide the nation can’t exist without.

Not that anyone in the Progressive-Democratic Party cares about bipartisanship. Here’s Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D, MN):

We should not allow any obstacles to get in our way as we push for this policy. It’s imperative that we explore every avenue, every strategy, that will allow us to push through[.]

And here’s the utter contempt for those ordinary Americans who run the small and mom-and-pop businesses that will be most damaged by a nationally mandated minimum wage. Congressman Donald Norcross (D, NJ), Co-Chair of the Progressive-Democrats’ Congressional Labor Caucus insists that:

small business owners opposed to a $15 minimum wage hike are crying “crocodile tears,” arguing that “they should be happy because it levels the playing field with competition; across the street will be paying the same thing….

Yeah—those whiners should be satisfied that all of them are being equally damaged. Never mind that they aren’t only competing against those “across the street;” they’re also competing against the major businesses and chains—who can handle a mandated increase in wage.

But hey—the Progressive-Democrat knows far better, from the august heights of his Beltway bubble, than do actual business owners and operators what the situation is on the ground.

There’s a hint buried in there, though, somewhere. If the concept of a Federally mandated minimum wage can’t pass through Congress as a stand-alone bill, maybe it’s just barely possible that a Federally mandated minimum wage is a terrible idea, a bad law, and something that us Americans—and us actual business owners—don’t want.

Kancel Kulture

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The cowardly cancelists at Gannett Company have joined to crowd under the bed. They’ve decided to cancel the comic strip Mallard Fillmore, which does satire and along the way ridicules the golden calves of the Left.

The causes of the cancelation are two strips that the comic’s writer/drawer published on 19 and 20 February. I’ve reproduced them here so readers can see the depth of cowardice of the wonders at Gannet.

The 19 Feb strip:

The 20 Feb strip:

The horror.

“Not Appropriate”

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That’s what Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D, CA) says about the press entering President Joe Biden’s (D) illegal alien detention facilities and recording the doings there.

I don’t necessarily think that it’s appropriate for journalists to be inside centers that are not permanent places for children[.]

Because it’s inappropriate for the public to know the conditions in those facilities—especially as they concern unaccompanied and too-often trafficked children—and the true nature of the crisis at our southern border.

It’s especially inappropriate for us ordinary Americans to know the Wuhan Virus situation in the Biden-Obama cages containing those children. Sanchez insists—and she’s actually serious—that Virus protocols make it further “inappropriate” for journalists to be allowed to see the conditions in which these children are being held.

“Transparency” is just the Progressive-Democrats’ newspeak for “sit down and shut up.”

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Much is being made of President Joe Biden’s (D) refusal to address the situation at our Mexico border, with its burgeoning illegal alien flow into our nation, as a crisis. Much is being made of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ parallel overt rejection of the term “crisis” as a reference to that situation.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has said that the administration isn’t in the business of “labeling” and that the Biden administration doesn’t take immigration advice from the Trump administration. That last is just a bit of empty-headed snark that Biden spouted as he speaks with Psaki’s mouth, for all that it provides a window into the nature of Biden’s inability to deal with what he has wrought at our border over the months since his election, as Mexico’s drug cartels and coyotes and folks from around the world act on his campaign promises of open borders once he’s in office.

On the larger matter, though, Biden—through Psaki—is right, to a point. Labels by themselves can be pretty meaningless, and they can be misleading.

However, properly done, they can be useful shorthand for referring to complex matters that are being handled or that need to be handled. Properly done, labels can serve to briefly identify the nature of the complex matter and thereby guide development of concrete, actionable solutions.

On the other hand, a problem cannot be attacked and resolved if it cannot be identified and understood.

A situation that is “No Big Deal” wants an entirely different response from a situation that is a crisis.

An influx of illegal aliens that is merely a “challenge” needs only local law enforcement involvement, with maybe a touch of Federal assistance, and some humane detention until the illegal aliens can be properly deported.

An influx of illegal aliens, though (and that influx is just the illegal aliens who actually are caught), that overwhelms not only local law enforcement but Federal agencies responsible for enforcing our borders—all of them—and enforcing our immigration laws; an influx that overwhelms our detention facilities, to the point that children become “housed” in the cages Biden inherited from ex-President Barack Obama (D) and currently is using; an influx that overwhelms our border facilities to the point that Wuhan Virus testing facilities are overwhelmed so that most of the illegal aliens who are actually caught and detained go untested and unquarantined—that influx is a crisis.

That’s the failing—a critical failing—of the Biden administration. It cannot label the situation as the crisis that it is.

And so it cannot understand the problem at our southern border.

Or it refuses to try to understand, which would be worse.

Another Model for Election Integrity Legislation

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A short time ago, I posted a model out of Georgia that that State was enacting to protect the integrity of its election process, including its role in Federal elections. Here’s another model, this one from Arizona. This one, a collection of separate bills (what an innovation: small bills covering a single subject, instead of one huge, unreadable “omnibus” bill):

  • HB2792, which will prohibit the mass mailing of ballots to voters who have not requested one—and enforce the provision by making it a class five felony to violate it
  • HB2569, aims to prohibit the private funding of election activities. … Zuckerberg-funded nonprofits in turn “influenced the process for how elections go,” [State Representative Jake (R), who led the legislation’s passage,] Hoffman said. “And that is a bridge too far … that is something that we absolutely do not want.”
  • Other measures prohibit same-day voter registration, require hand count audits to be statistically significant with a 99% confidence level, and prevent government officials from modifying statutorily prescribed election deadlines—as was seen in many states ahead of last November’s election. [And which was a plain violation of our Federal Constitution.] The bill adds a class 6 felony for any violation of the latter provision.

The legislation now is in front of the Arizona Senate.

Imagine that—States in our federal governance structure moving to protect the sanctity of a citizen’s vote.