Category Archives: ethics

Of What are they Afraid?

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Attorney General William Barr, during testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he thought the Trump 2016 Presidential campaign had been spied on by Federal authorities, and he wanted to be sure whether that spying was legitimately done or not.

I think spying did occur.  The question is whether it was adequately predicated. …  Spying on a political campaign is a big deal.

Oh, the hoo-raw.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA):

I don’t trust Barr, I trust Mueller.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D, MD) now insists that Barr’s “loyalties were compromised.”

He is acting as an employee of the president.  I believe the Attorney General believes he needs to protect the president of the United States.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D, NY):

Barr’s vow to probe the FBI’s 2016 counterintelligence probe amounted to nothing more than “Republican conspiracy theory nonsense.”

And there’s the manufactured whine over petty terminology.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D, CA):

[Barr] should not casually suggest that those under his purview engaged in “spying” on a political campaign.

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D, CT)

said Barr should immediately retract his statement and apologize.
“The only spies interfering in the 2016 campaign were Russian ones.”

Senator Brian Schatz (D, HI):

took issue with Barr’s word choice, saying “the word ‘spying’ could cause everybody in the cable news ecosystem to freak out.”

And:

NBC News‘ Chuck Todd said this was a “conspiracy theory”

Of course, contra Schatz, the only folks who will “freak out” are those looking for excuses to display their virtuous outrage.  And those with something to hide.

Instead, Progressive-Democrats should welcome the Barr’s investigation; they then could use his finding of nothing to see to further impede Trump and to get their own candidates elected far and wide.

Unless….

Cable News Strikes Again

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MSNBC has illustrated why so much of the Left’s news outlets on cable have so little credibility.

This time, the outlet is complaining about President Donald Trump’s alleged interference in Israeli politics by supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection—openly, rather than secretly and with illegal means as Russian President Vladimir Putin has done in our elections.

Here’s Chris Matthews:

American presidents from both of our parties have abstained from getting involved in Israeli politics, opting instead of playing two roles; friend of Israel but also a regional honest broker. But not this time. President Trump broke with his predecessors, taking a number of steps to help insure that his friend Bibi Netanyahu was victorious today.

And

Always, our president from Eisenhower—from all the way up to W, although some lean towards Israel, some leaned against them a little bit…they’ve always played this other role as honest broker in the region so they can bring peace and play a bigger global role than just being buddies with Israel.

It’s certainly true that Trump supports his friend Netanyahu.  It’s certainly true, though, that not always have our Presidents abstained from getting involved in Israeli politics—by supporting a friend in word and encouragement.

Ex-President Barack Obama (D) had his State Department transfer taxpayer money to OneVoice, to oppose Netanyahu in an earlier election.  This goes far beyond mere words of encouragement.

Matthews knows this full well; he’s illustrated why the NLMSM can’t have nice things.

Backwards

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A 9th Circuit District Judge has said that illegal aliens claiming to seek asylum in the US cannot be sent back to Mexico to wait for their day in court.  The judge’s ruling held, in essence, that

…the administration lacked a legal basis under current law for adopting the policy. He also found the policy ran afoul of the US’ legal obligations not to remove people to a country where their lives or freedom are threatened.

This is wrong on both counts. The whole point of Executive Actions of any sort is to fill a gap in “current law” and so to accomplish something that a President determines needs doing.  The laws authorizing such things explicitly authorize a President to fill such gaps.  Certainly, a President cannot create new law; his Orders, Proclamations, and so on, must fit within the existing legal system—and, not being law, they can be undone by subsequent Presidents via the same mechanisms.

What’s required is a law that prevents this or that policy from being adopted by Executive Action, and that law does not exist.  This Federal judge is legislating from the bench, and that’s a violation of his oath of office.

The other wrong is the judge’s claim that moving purported asylum seekers back to Mexico to wait for their case to be heard is moving them to a nation where their lives or freedom are threatened.  This is simply nonsense. Mexico has offered these folks asylum in Mexico, and that nation has gone further: it’s offered them job opportunities so they can earn their way while they wait—or in the event they choose to stay.  Mexico is a far safer nation than any of the three Caravan Triangle nations whence most of these purported asylum seekers began their trek.  Indeed, the judge’s ruling on this aspect misreads the law.  Claimants must make their claims on the basis of the country they’re leaving, not the country from which they originated.  That’s Mexico, not Honduras, or El Salvador, or Guatemala.

There’s one other factor here, too.  These folks should have no case when their claims do come up in court.  They can’t possibly be seeking asylum when they’ve already been offered precisely that from the nation they’re trying to leave to enter the US, and rejected it.

Timidity

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Progressive-Democrat Mayor (South Bend, IN) and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg used to insist that, in addition to Black Lives Mattering, Blue Lives and All Lives Matter, also.

Not so much, anymore.

What I did not understand at that time was that that phrase just early, into mid-, especially 2015 was coming to be viewed as a sort of counter slogan to Black Lives Matter….
And so this statement that seems anodyne and something no one could be against actually wound up being used to devalue what the Black Lives Matter movement….

What utter, timid nonsense.

The devaluing was only in the fetid imaginations of those demanding the meanings of words be changed to suit their whims and not be kept in their true meanings.

All Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter do not in any way devalue the fact that Black Lives Matter or alter the premise of the Black Lives Matter movement that black lives matter.  Proclaiming the one in no way devalues the other; the two exist easily side by side without contradiction, without dialectic.

Buttigieg’s meek apology for uttering truisms is just his surrender of our lexicon to a narrow, activist move.

The governments of both Russia and the People’s Republic of China are well-known for their doublespeak and their…alteration…of the meanings of words and phrases to suit their political wishes.  Would a President Buttigieg further surrender our lexicon to them and speak using only terms and meanings of which they approve, too?

Is this another example of Progressive-Democrat flexibility to be offered to our enemies?

Releasing the Mueller Report

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The Progressive-Democrats in Congress are in full uproar over the Mueller report—they want it released right damn now, and they want it unredacted. They’re not alone on the first; all of us want the report released as soon as possible.  Which leads to the second: it’s illegal to release grand jury proceedings and classified intelligence information, both of which are present in the report.  The Progressive-Democrats, of course, know this; they just don’t think laws or regulations matter when they become inconvenient.

AG William Barr also agrees with that first part.

Mr Barr has made clear that he appreciates the public interest in seeing as much of Mr Mueller’s report as possible.

Barr should emphasize that appreciation by releasing the (redacted as required) Mueller report to the public a week or more before he releases it to the public’s elected employees in Congress.

Then there’s the House Intelligence Committee MFWIC:

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff recently tweeted that “Barr should seek court approval (just like in Watergate) to allow the release of grand jury material. Redactions are unacceptable.”

How disingenuous. Were Schiff serious, he’d seek court approval—and an associated release order—himself. He’s just cynically posturing.